


Run Like Hell

by thisenglishsoul1999



Category: Pink Floyd
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:34:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 24,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23265532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisenglishsoul1999/pseuds/thisenglishsoul1999
Summary: She's a demon, he's an angel. She's an art student, he's a sensational prisoner of Hell. They make quite the pair...This is a Pink Floyd fanfic only in the widest sense of the word. It owes as much to the amazing "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman as it does to the band (not that much.) Basically all I did was make David Gilmour my angel, for reasons.
Relationships: David Gilmour/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

The topic of the day was that someone had captured an angel.

This was quite some news.

Now, just so we’re clear. It was not only news; it was almost unprecedented. As far as most demons were concerned, no angel had been seen in hell for as long as anyone could remember, which was a rather long time. There were tales of angels walking among demons thousands of years ago, but to most inhabitants of Below they were just that, tales. Sure, sometimes you met on a mission that happened to take place on planet Earth, but even that was rare enough.

An angel? In hell? Cleo thought it should be quite exciting. 

She was an advanced student of biology and art, and by almost any account a model demon, except for one failure: she was far too interested in the other side. Like most demons, she couldn’t remember what life in heaven had been like before she’d fallen. Unlike most demons, though, she secretly thought it a pity. For starters, she really would have liked to remember why exactly she had fallen in the first place. It was not the kind of question you asked at demon school; she’d tried once or twice. 

“You probably got fed up with acting holier than thou all day long” they’d said. “And quite right too. Now shut up and draw your three-headed dog.”

Generally, demons were encouraged to ask questions. Some questions, though, were out of bounds even in hell.

Her alarm went off with a clattering, banging, shrieking noise that would have made any heavy metal drummer jealous. Alarm clocks are ingenious demonic devices, but somehow humans have managed to take the edge off the concept at least a little bit by thinking up soothing melodies and snooze buttons. No such things were tolerated in hell. You only got the genuine article here, which was a truly crafty instrument of torture that went on and on, getting louder all the while. When you rolled over in bed with your eyes squeezed shut, trying to coordinate your sleep-numbed hands to turn the blasted thing off, it would hop out of the way. Demons hate being woken just as much as the next supernatural entity, but they’ve become pretty good at getting out of bed. They have no choice, really. 

Cleo jumped out of her bed (yes, it was black; no, there wasn’t a trace of leather anywhere) and the alarm clock fell silent. She groaned and tried to remember what day of the week it was.

Oh, right, Monday. This was not a good start of the day. Not having invented Mondays themselves was one of the major sources of discontentment Down here. The Almighty had beaten them to it, quite ironically, if you thought about it.

Cleo got dressed in various shades of black-ish purple, black and very dark grey and left her flat without breakfast. Demons had heard that breakfast was propagated as being very good for you and had consequently decided they would have none of it.

At university, she sat through a two-hour lecture on the lessons that could be drawn from a profoundly clever book two earthlings had written (‘Good Omens’, it was called). Next up was drawing. With an actual model, who stood in the centre of the room with the most bored look imaginable on his face, hands on hips, charcoal black wings on display. Most demons usually opted to keep them hidden for the simple reason that they tended to get stuck in train doors and that leather jackets looked so much groovier without slits on the back. Cleo tended to unfurl her own only after a nice long grooming session, a treat she allowed herself about once a month. This model possessed some pretty nice wings, you had to hand it to him. They made for quite a challenge to draw, but Cleo was good. When the teacher, Mr. Lucifair, strutted past her seat, he stopped, folded his hands behind his back and craned his neck to get a look at Cleo’s work. “Not bad, this” he said.

“Hm hmm.” Any form of ‘thank you’ would have been a flagrant demonstration of good manners, which were, of course, disgusting.

“Tell you what” Mr Lucifair went on, “maybe you should… I wonder… ah, let’s see. You’ll hear from me.” He straightened himself and walked on as briskly as was possible for him.

“Alright, I guess?” Cleo replied to the wall.

She had just sat down for lunch when the headmaster came bounding towards her. “Hey, you, yes, you miss, the ginger one, come with me!”

Cleo, being a good demon who never did what she was asked right away on principle, threw him an irritated look. “What, me?”  
“Yes, you!”  
“Why, for Satan’s sake?”

“Oh, you’ve got a commendation, well, kind of. Your teacher recommended you for a very special task. Thinks the world of you, apparently. Or of your drawing skills, not sure about the rest, he didn’t exactly say… Now come, hurry!”

Cleo was nothing if not curious. Considering that stalling him twice was probably just about sufficient, she grabbed her bag and followed the excitable headmaster.

He led her down a couple of gloomy corridors lined with blackened paintings of demons deprecatingly staring down at them, snapped his fingers at a shiny black door, ushered her through, slammed the door shut and announced, “Here she is!”.

Three men turned around to face them.

Oh, Cleo thought. This Monday had suddenly become a lot more interesting.

Two of the men were undoubtedly of a demonic nature. The yellow eyes rather gave them away. So did the guards’ uniforms and the fact that they had their hands firmly placed on the shoulders of the third guy who stood between them and who was undoubtedly not of a demonic nature. His hands were tied behind his back. Everything about him screamed DIFFERENT, and also contempt though that was probably not built-in but directed solely at his abductors. The otherness radiated from him like a faint, pure glow. He stood very upright, but his white clothes – a colour any demon would not be caught dead wearing, metaphorically speaking of course – were torn and dirty and possibly bloodied in places, although Cleo was not sure what colour the blood of an angel was. Because he had to be the angel, right? 

“Who is she, headmaster?” the first guardsdemon enquired. 

“An aspiring artist!”

“Yeah, kind of” Cleo piped up, but she was distracted. The angel had turned his head and the look he gave her was burning straight into her skull. He had – did he have blue eyes? She’d never seen a being with blue eyes. Nor had she ever seen a more beautiful one. He made the most handsome demons (and humans) look like Beelzebub himself. Like Beelzebub on a really bad day.

“Oh, Mr Lucifair told us all about your talents, ginger” the headmaster hooted. “Just what we need!”  
“What?”  
“Is she a daft one?” the second guardsdemon wanted to know. “The daft ones are always annoying.”

“Yeah, especially when they start talking” Cleo shot back and gave him a threatening smirk when he opened his mouth again. He closed it.

The headmaster grinned, clearly having a great time. All demons loved a bit of good old-fashioned banter. “Now, as I’m sure you’ve heard, our patrols have achieved something totally unprecedented last night. They’ve managed to capture someone from the other side!” (Most demons, on the other hand, disliked the word “angel”, possibly because it reminded them of their lives before they’d fallen, which was embarrassing.)

The angel turned his head away from Cleo, shaking his long hair out of his eyes. It was light brown – or dark blond. A colour rarely seen in hell, where most inhabitants agreed that black, white and red hair was all the rage, as it had been for the past six hundred years. Male demons usually wore it short, or alternatively very short. Behind the startling mane of hair, the captive angel looked very bored and contemptuous. Cleo wondered if it was only a mask he put on, given that he was surrounded by enemies and quite definitely outnumbered.

“Yeah, that’s cool, congrats.” She crossed her arms. “Where do I come in?” Oh yes, she was very, very intrigued.

“Well, what do you think is the standard procedure when an enemy is captured?” the headmaster asked.

“Um, I was under the impression that we’d never actually caught an angel before, so what standard -“

“Ah, that’s just the terminology. Naturally we’re questioning him, trying to find out as much as possible about the other side, you see. Several physicians have started examining him as well and they requested we have everything put on record, including a study of the, well, foreign physique we’re dealing with here.”

Cleo looked at the prisoner, whose blue eyes glinted at her. He was holding her gaze, stubbornly. Refusing to be defeated. Hmm. Intriguing. Oh yes. 

“You mean a drawing? Sure, I can do that.”

“Oh, several, I should think. A portrait, some details, but also a full drawing or maybe two, to cover every angle, no pun intended, naturally… ah, I’ll just leave you to it, ginger. You’re the artist!” The headmaster gave her a toothy grin. Demons never smile when they can grin.

“Suits me. When do I start?”  
“Oh, why not right now?”

Cleo looked at the angel’s face. His expression, his stance, the slightly upturned chin, everything about him was pure defiance. The first guardsdemon elbowed him in the ribs, but he barely flinched. Cleo smirked. She was more excited than she’d been in years. “Oh, yeah, why not?” A nod at the guards. “Let’s go to Art Hall II. Come on, get a move on, boys.”

The pair pulled a face and were about to object, but the headmaster silenced them with a gesture and motioned for them to follow the young girl demon. “We shall put a ban on the hall that will allow only demons to leave it. You needn’t fear any attacks from our captive. Now, to work! Chop, chop!”

They grabbed the angel’s upper arms and made for the door. “Come on, you.”

“No need to push” said the prisoner, and Cleo shivered slightly at the unexpected sound of his voice. It was a good kind of shiver. His voice was as gorgeous as the rest of him.  
This was going to be so much fun.


	2. Chapter 2

When they reached Art Hall II, Cleo reached for the angel’s tied-up hands and shooed the sulking guards away. “I’d really like to know who gave you the authority” groused number two. 

“The headmaster said to get to work, didn’t he? I can’t work with two great big dunces like you lurking about. Artists need space, never heard of that?”  
No, they had not.  
“Well, it’s true” Cleo said, unnerved. “Now off you go!”

She was shorter and slimmer than the two of them, but her attitude created the impression that she was also fiercer and meaner. The guardsdemons started to back off. “You’re - “, number one began.

“Are you always like this?” the angel asked, sounding even more unnerved and slightly incredulous, as though they were failing to meet the standards he’d expected from his archenemies. It made the three demons feel sort of uneasy. Like they should have done their homework better. 

“Oh, I’m sure you guys up there have so much more style” Cleo replied when she had regained her composure. “Tell you what, you can tell me all about it while you’re modelling for me.” She pushed him into the hall, mouthed “GET LOST!” at the guards and slammed the door shut. The echo dutifully bounced back and forth across the high granite walls before fading away. Hell has standards.

Cleo sauntered to a desk in the front row and flopped down into the chair. The angel stood like a statue. He looked decidedly disinterested.

“I’m Cleo, by the way” said the demon girl. She leaned forward, fixing her yellow gaze on him. “What’s yours?” 

He remained silent.

“Hey, you! Pretty boy!” She waved a hand at him.

“Does it matter?” he asked, still playing bored. The faintest blush had appeared on his face when she’d called him “pretty boy” – possibly. Cleo’s purple tongue darted out to lick her lips, and he frowned very briefly.

“Yup” she said, popping the ‘p’. “Because I’m asking for it. So?”  
Stubborn silence.  
“I could hurt you, you know.”  
“I know.”

The tension was starting to crackle in the air. Cleo got up, strolled over to him with her hands in her pockets, and positioned herself five inches from his face. She had to look up. He was rather tall, and of course he still didn’t budge. 

Demon and angel, face to face, staring silently. 

Then she moved like a flash, behind him, and untied his hands with nimble fingers. “There. That’s better, right? Now kindly – “, she stuck her tongue out and grimaced, “gah, that’s how you lot say, though, right? Kindly tell me your name, Prince Charming.”

The angel flexed his long fingers, looking down at his hands. Cleo raised her eyebrows. He mirrored her, but then he said, “David”.

“David? Uh, pretty.”

“What is happening now, artist demon?” he said, ignoring her comment.

“Are you a bit sassy?” Cleo asked. “Blimey, I never thought you guys were sassy. Aren’t you supposed to be all holy and stuff?”

He cocked his head to the side, a wordless reproach. Once again, she felt as though she’d failed in class. But she’d be damned – well, sort of anyway – if she was going to let it on.   
“If you’re gonna be sassy, I’ll be sure to outperform you, just saying”. She took a step back and looked him up and down. “Do you have wings?”

He sighed softly and pursed his full lips. “Yes, I do.”  
“Show me, then.”

A flicker of fear crossed his handsome features but was gone again in the blink of an eye. “Do you need to draw them too?”

Cleo grabbed the front of his loose white shirt but let go when he winced. She wouldn’t say sorry, of course, but she felt a pang of guilt and empathy. At least she thought those were the names of the emotions she was experiencing. Guilt and empathy? How rubbish was that?

“Well, as a matter of fact, I do, clever boy” she hissed to cover up her little lapse. “And shall I tell you an interesting fact? You’re gonna do what I tell you. Because guess who’s in charge here? Here’s a hint – it’s not you.” Damn, those light blue eyes looked so reproachful. Why were they so pretty? Who had ever heard of blue eyes? “Just show me your damn wings” she said. “I have to cover everything, and that includes a drawing of your wings. Come on.”

She wasn’t prepared for the dazzling white that unfurled before her eyes with a swishing sound. The angel’s wings were bigger than hers and of a coruscant pearly colour. Except for the spot where they were stained dark red. Oh Satan, more guilt and empathy feelings.

“Okay, right” she said quickly. “I think I’m going to do a detailed drawing of the wings later on… for now, let’s do some full body sketches.”

The angel made his wings disappear again.  
“I’ll just stand here, then”, he said in a voice that sounded polite and indifferent but was probably very sarcastic at the core.

“You do that.” Cleo plunked back down into her chair and took out a pencil and a sheet of thick, grey paper. “And stand still.”

He didn’t reply, but he didn’t protest either. The demon leaned back and looked at him, very, very carefully. She’d be lying if she pretended she had not been scrutinizing him up to that moment, but now she switched on her artist’s vision and looked his impressive frame over very thoroughly. Bonus points if she could make him blush again. Demons were generally very good at making humans go crimson from head to toe, but a supernatural entity from Above was a new challenge.

The captive angel was dressed in long white trousers that didn’t reveal the shape of his legs, but it was obvious that he was unusually well-built. The flowing top, thin and torn in several places, clung to broad shoulders that tapered down to a slim waist, accentuated by a strip of cloth that held the trousers in place like a simple belt. Well-muscled arms, smooth skin, rather fair but with a slight tan. Hair past his collarbones. Bare feet. She would study his face more closely when she did the portrait, but it was impossible not to notice the harmony of his features and the vivid sparkle in his alien eyes.

He was, she decided, all around gorgeous. The models from art class had nothing on him. He was even better at looking bored than all of them combined.

“Blimey, pretty boy.” Cleo clicked her tongue. “Where have they found you?”

His eyebrows twitched at the comment. He still hadn’t blushed. “How do you mean?”

“I mean that you’re really fucking handsome” she said with an eyeroll. There, just a hint of red on the high cheekbones. “But I also mean, how did they capture you?”

“I was part of a group. We were outnumbered. I stayed behind and fought so the others could escape. Why do you care, artist demon?”

“My name is Cleo, darling.” He flinched, clearly finding the new nickname revolting. How cute. “You fought? I thought your lot disapproved of violence?”

“You mean we should have let those fiends abduct all of us, just like that?”

“Oh, what do I know? About… angels, I mean. So you fight?”

“When it’s for the right cause.”

“Pfff, now you’re sounding really holy.”

David smiled very briefly. “It’s part of the job description. You’re sounding rather unholy.” He closed his mouth and looked like he wasn’t going to open it again until they were done with the drawing session.

“Good, alright, be grumpy if you want to” Cleo shook her head. “I have to get working. Stand still.”

The angel gave her a look that conveyed a wide range of responses, from pointing out that he could go nowhere else without her to asserting his intention to stay rooted to the spot at any rate. She found the power of those looks quite unsettling. Not that she’d admit it.

Cleo put the tip of the pencil down on the paper and drew the first line. The outline of his right leg. She looked up. David hadn’t moved. Oh, he was good. 

She smiled devilishly to herself and got sketching. 

“Oh, these aren’t half bad!” was the headmaster’s reaction when Cleo showed him the two full body sketches she’d completed that afternoon. David had let the guards haul him out of the room and back to Satan knew where without complaint, but she thought she’d seen him wince again when they grabbed his arms and for some stupid reason her thoughts kept returning to that moment. 

“We’re going to need a proper anatomic study, though.”

Cleo snapped back into the present. “Uh, what?”

“No clothes” the older demon specified airily. “Oh, a loincloth will do” he added upon seeing Cleo’s blank face. “But that’s what it’s about, you see – alien anatomy. They could be different from us in so many ways, and this is part of the scientific test process. It’s perfect, really, seeing as you’re a student of biology as well as art!”

“Suuuuuure” said Cleo, drawing out the word as if it was a rope she was climbing down slowly. When she got to the bottom, she said, “No problem, gonna start next time. Tomorrow?”

“Don’t see why not!” The headmaster rubbed his hands together.

“Nor me” Cleo said truthfully, and left the office to head home.

She had a lot to think about that night. It was unchartered territory. Demons didn’t waste much time on considering feelings, neither their own nor others’. Cleo guessed it must be the angelic effect.

The defiant blue eyes and the small smile kept creeping up on her. Groaning, she turned over in her bed. One thing was for sure, David the angel was having one hell of an effect on her.


	3. Chapter 3

The following morning, she marched straight to Art Hall II. “Morning, cutie pie!” The door slammed shut behind her. David, who still wore the same, much tried clothes from the day before, turned to look at her with a pained look on his face. “Do you have to use these… names?” he wanted to know.

Cleo sauntered over to him and grinned broadly. “If they annoy you… then yes, absolutely, babe.” She had several goals for this day. Number one was to make him blush.   
Disappointingly, for now the angel’s response was to put on his “standards in hell really are even lower than I thought” expression. “Good morning” he said.

Cleo reached up and pinched his cheek. He stared at her, flabbergasted. “Aaaw, aren’t you cute!” she giggled. Cheekily shocking him was number two on the list. He sighed and looked the other way.

“You really are, though. Alrrrrright… about today.” She hopped on a desk and started swinging her legs back and forth. “We’re gonna do anatomy studies.”

David touched the tip of his tongue to the back of his upper teeth. He didn’t say anything, so Cleo found herself talking on. “Headmaster’s orders. It… it means, you’re gonna have to take your clothes off, well, some of them, well, most of them, he said something about a loincloth – are you wearing one?” She leaned forward, eyeing him expectantly and grinning with one side of her mouth. This was so exciting. They knew things about the other side in hell, of course. Regrettably, so far their knowledge did not extend to angels’ reactions to being asked to shed most of their clothes and pose for an artist. Cleo liked to think she was making a major contribution to science. Go to university, they’d said. It will be interesting, they’d said.

Nobody could have anticipated quite how interesting it was going to become. She wondered if there was an entry on loincloths somewhere in the heavy, leather-bound volumes on their hereditary enemies. There’d better be soon.

“You want me to undress, then?” Cleo was punched in the face by his voice, or so it felt. Somehow he managed to sound simultaneously reproachful, composed and sultry. She’d probably be able to make a lot of money forcing him to narrate audiobooks on the demon radio station. Cleo knew male demons who’d do really bad things to sound like this, which was saying something. 

“Do all of you sound like this?” she asked.

David stared into her eyes and she stared back. Demons only blink when they feel like it. “Like what?”

“Gosh, are you actually this innocent or do you just… whatever. Yeah, take your clothes off, please. We have a lot of work to do. Well, I do, all you have to do is stand there and look good. Shouldn’t be too hard. Get going!” She clapped her hands.

“And you’re going to observe?” David said.

Cleo crossed her legs and rested her chin on her folded hands, not taking her eyes off him. A child waiting for the magician to pull the damn rabbit out of his hat already couldn’t have looked more expectant. “Oh, you bet.”

There, he blushed. Tick off number one. The mask of proud indifference was still in place, but she noticed. She’d always been good at noticing things. She couldn’t wait to notice some more.

“What about the wings?” he asked.

“Just strip.”

He bit his lower lip, defiance, controlled anger, a hint of fear flickering across the beautiful features. Cleo opened her mouth. Then closed it again. 

The angel tucked his ripped top from his trousers and pulled it over his head. His long hair got tousled and he smoothed it back, looking for a place to put down his shirt. Cleo automatically reached out her hand and he gave it to her without a word. The fabric was dirty, but incredibly soft. There were traces of blood. Angel blood, deep red and accusing her.

Cleo looked up and saw the wound on his shoulder. “I’m…” The words were damming up in her mouth, but none made it past her lips. I’m sorry? Demons never said they were sorry. Sorry was a four-letter word. Sorry was for other people. Cleo was a model demon, yet here she was, staring at the bloody gash in an angel’s shoulder, wanting to tell him she was sorry. It was the artist in her, she told her consciousness. There was something deeply wrong about this kind of image being flawed by a nasty wound. It stained his beauty and upset her eye that was so good at noticing. It was wrong. They shouldn’t have done that to him. It was wrong.

David pretended not to have heard her pathetic attempt at a comment, focusing instead on unlacing his belt. When he held his trousers out to her, Cleo took the bundle and looked at him again. 

“Uh uh” she said.

David took a deep breath. “Yes?” He rubbed his bare left arm absent-mindedly. Cleo’s eyes followed the motions of his long fingers and the prominent veins on his arm.

“Nothing” she said. “Nothing, you’re just…” She trailed off. “Beautiful.”

“I’m beautiful… to a demon?” David said. He shivered and closed his fingers tightly around his wrist.

“Oh, cut it; I bet you’re beautiful to anyone or anything with eyes” she snapped, taken aback by those stupid, confusing, utterly unnecessary emotions fogging up her mind, slowing down her thoughts. “And you know it.” She hurled those last words at him and he flinched as if he’d been hit physically. She hated how soft her voice had gone for a moment. Gross. 

“Angels must never succumb to arrogance” David said quietly. He had regained his composure, stoically standing before her only in what was probably a loincloth. Cleo had never seen any before, but she was happy enough to file this away under “loincloth” in her mind. The angel had a gorgeous body, the planes of his broad chest and the round lines of his biceps just begging to be captured on paper. With every second she spent looking at him, she noticed another fascinating detail. The way his collarbones formed two straight downward lines, with an elegant, soft curve to them, how long his toes were, the single strand of hair resting on his bare chest which rose and fell softly with every breath he took.

Also, and this was what put a halt to her daydreams, the bruises above his hips, on his abdomen and legs as well as the cut on his wrist which he was still rubbing slowly with his fingers.

“Hey, you, pretty boy” she said, the softness creeping back into her voice like drops of sweet milk. He raised his head, those full lips slightly parted, to give her a questioning look.   
“Did the guards do this to you?”

He remained silent. “You’re one hell of a stubborn bugger” said Cleo. No response. “Or should I say one heaven? Nah, that sounds stupid… and I’m rambling again, aren’t I?”

The angel did something with his mouth that probably meant “yes, but don’t let me detain you, I’m just the prisoner model”. It also made her smile. She got up and crossed the space between them. Briefly – very briefly – it occurred to her that she could ask for permission. Ridiculous. She raised a hand and touched the blue-green bruise on his flat stomach. His muscles tensed up, but when he realized she wasn’t hurting him he relaxed. 

“Did this happen when you fought?”

“Some, yes. Some later.”

She moved her fingers up to his injured shoulder, and he flinched. “It’s fine” he mumbled.

“Blah, blah, blah” said Cleo. “Doesn’t matter if you’re a demon, or a human, or a… a dog, or a fucking angel. Men are always like ‘uh, yes, I’ve been injured, someone’s stuck a sword in me or clubbed me over the head, but I’m totally fine, don’t help me, I’m gonna… gonna patch myself up back home, no problem, or whatever, just tough it out!’”

David smiled at her. “My apologies” he said.

Cleo was staring at him. “That was the first time you smiled” she said, fascinated. 

“No” he said decisively, “just the first time I did it here.”

“Okay, pretty boy” Cleo grinned. Her hand was still touching the smooth skin next to the bloody gash. He felt cooler than a demon. She rather liked it. “I don’t care if you claim you’re fine, we’re definitely taking care of this before I draw you half-naked.” She pushed her tongue out between her lips. “Hmmm, yes, I like the sound of that.” Come on, blush. “I suppose you couldn’t heal yourself because they’re demonic injuries, and we’re in hell?”

“I suppose so” said the angel. “My powers are much weaker here. I could stop it bleeding.”

“Alright. Come on, lie down on that table.”

He clearly didn’t like that suggestion. “Why?”

“Are you just being stubborn on purpose? Because it works better! When you don’t have to keep yourself upright, your body can direct all the energy into the injured parts and accelerate the healing process once I get to work. Also because I say so. Come on!”

The angel’s disturbingly blue eyes were burning into hers again, but she held his gaze, her arms crossed and her brow furrowed. He stepped over to the table and lowered himself down, slow, careful movements full of masculine grace. She could see every muscle in his calves moving under the skin. He muttered something like “very comfortable

“It’s a table” she said, “big, flat, wooden thing. They’re not meant to be comfortable.”

“Major design flaw” said David. 

“Hmmmm…” Cleo sat down and leaned over him, studying his face up close. “Where are they keeping you, by the way? At a guess, not in a room with a nice soft bed?” She put her palm on his shoulder, concentrating hard.

He held her curious gaze stoically. “No, more like a cell. Ow!” 

“Ssssh. Hmm. No nice, soft bed then?”

“No.”

“Pity. Sssssh, I’m nearly done – woah, this feels weird! I’ve only ever healed demons before! You feel completely different… oh, this is good, I think, should be back to normal now.”

David sucked in his breath, then relaxed visibly. “Oh, that’s better. Thank you.”

Cleo ignored the last two words. It was easier that way, less confusing. She was skating across very thin ice here, so avoiding the most visible puddles seemed like the smartest thing to do. Or maybe not. “Speaking of weird and completely different…” She got very close to his face again. “Your eyes…”

“What about them?”

“Well, they’re blue, sweetie. I’ve never seen that before! And your pupils never change their shape, do they?”

“No. Do all demons have yellow eyes?” It was the first time he’d asked her such a question. 

“Well, no! Well, yes… different shades of yellow, though. Do all angels have blue eyes?”

“No” he said. “Some have brown eyes, or green, or violet or grey ones. Mostly like humans.”

“I’ve never seen a human with blue eyes like yours” said Cleo. “I mean, not that blue.”

He blinked, long black lashes fluttering. How did they not get tangled? 

“Not to be impolite, but could you possibly do something about my wrist as well?” he asked, holding up his injured hand which had started to bleed. Cleo brushed her fingers over the deep cut, one, two, three, four times, and it disappeared. “Thank you” the angel said, and gave her the second smile of the day. He had beautiful lips, with that little dip in the centre shaped like the lower half of a heart. She couldn’t wait to draw them. But how did you draw something that looked so soft?

“Right, only the bruises left!” she chirped. She’d never even known she could sound like this. Did angels emanate some kind of disturbance waves that messed with demons’ minds? She pressed her hands to his abdomen, noticing more things along the way, like the fact that his body felt utterly different to a demon’s, any demon’s she’d touched so far. Skin to skin contact for more than a second and she could sense his cool skin warming up, prickling up her arm. Totally alien. She should really get back to work. It felt good, though. Alien and new and very, very good.

David lifted his head from the table to see if the bruises were gone, and she quickly pressed her fingers on the purple-ish spot above his hipbone, healing the last bruise. Done. Withdraw. “That’s that” she said, pushing him in the ribs. “Maybe we can finally start working now?”

The angel got off the table and resumed his modelling position without objecting. “Thank you” he said quietly. 

Cleo bit her lip. “You… didn’t expect that, did you?” she asked.

He looked at her. “What?”

“For me to help you. You expected me to hurt you more, or at the very least to ignore your pain. You… heavens, not even I expected myself to help a captive angel!”

David didn’t reply, he just watched her running her fingers through her bright red hair, over and over, dropping her hands, shaking her head, taking deep breaths, flashing him a decidedly cocky, demonic grin. She took her pencil and pointed it at him. “I’m going to draw you. Anatomic sketch. Your anatomy. So, stand still.”

“Right” he said.

“A full body drawing first, then we’re gonna see about details later. Not sure how many details exactly… They want me to do the details too, but we definitely need a big one from each side, so I’m gonna start with those. Oh, listen to me, I should really just shut up and start working, shouldn’t I?”

He pursed his lips. “I’m standing still” he volunteered.

She shuddered. “Gosh, your fucking voice. Can you, like… tone that down from time to time?”

The angel frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Never fucking mind” she groaned. “I’m gonna start now. Oh, are you cold? Do angels get cold? You feel cold…”

“Don’t worry.”

“I don’t worry!” she snapped. “I never worry about – about other people. Why would I? And why would I start now? Don’t think you’re special just because you’re the only angel in hell!”

David shrugged.

“Bloody gorgeous pesky bastard” Cleo muttered so he couldn’t hear her, and drew the first line of his torso.


	4. Chapter 4

A sound like lead church bells on doomsday rolled over the roofs of the university. It struck six times. Then again. And again. Technically it was only six o’clock, but no demonic designer in any of the nine circles of hell could have resisted a chance to spell out “666” with a clock that sounded like gigantic coffin lids slamming shut. And no matter where you happened to find yourself at that moment, it always felt as though they were right next to your ear.

Cleo had had some decades to get used to it and barely rolled her eyes anymore, but David pressed his hands to his ears and looked very relieved when the clamour died away.

“That’s it for today, sweetie.” Cleo gathered up her pencils. “I think it’s quite good…” She eyed her drawings critically. The angel was an infinitely patient model, never moving of his own accord, never complaining. The demon had kept up a steady stream of muttered comments designed to break his cool mask and make him flush, maybe retort, but to no avail. Well. So far. She’d been holding back today. There was time. Hell was never short on time.

David interrupted her musings. “Can I put my clothes back on, please?” He was so disgustingly polite. Cleo lazily reached for the bundle. “If you really have to. I like you like this, but suit yourself.” It wasn’t teasing enough to elicit a reply from him; he simply started getting dressed. 

“They could really give you some new clothes, actually” Cleo said.

“No, thank you.” The angel pulled down his dirty shirt. “I’ll get proper new clothing once I’m back home.” He said it wish such stoic confidence that Cleo couldn’t even think of a sarcastic reply. 

“Right. See you tomorrow morning, model boy.”

He inclined his head, just briefly before two guards burst into the hall and dragged him off. Cleo didn’t like their faces. “Hey, guys, no need to rip up his pathetic shirt even more. I need this one back in top shape tomorrow.” But she’d waited too long to open her mouth; they were already out of earshot.

The headmaster was pleased with the first anatomic study. He let her take a biscuit from the jar on his desk. They were hellish biscuits which existed first and foremost to be looked at longingly, no to be eaten, so Cleo appreciated the honour and didn’t even bother to come up with a snarky comment, but grabbed three more than she was offered and slipped out the office with the promise to continue the next day. 

New day. It was time for more detailed studies. “Don’t just stand there, sweetie, we need those clothes off again.” That look. “Oh, gimme a break, I’m not even being sleazy!” Cleo grinned from behind her desk. “This is slightly mischievous at most.”

David almost smiled. Slowly, he untucked his shirt. Cleo narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Those pricks didn’t give you any more bruises, did they? They’re so stupid! I’m supposed to draw an angel the way he looks normally! Thickheads. And what for, anyway?”

“No.” He winced slightly. The demon gave him a “what did I say?” look.

“Alright, it’s the wing.”

“Oh, I’m dumb! I forgot to heal that yesterday. Let me see!”

She walked up to him, squinting when he unfurled his blindingly white wings, and hesitated. “Can I even touch them? What do you think will happen?” Demons’ wings were private. You didn’t touch them unless you knew the owner very well. It was a bit like smacking a stranger’s bum, just more distasteful. 

“I couldn’t say, but nothing happened when you touched my skin yesterday, did it?” David said matter-of-factly. 

“Well, except for that prickling thing when your body temperature adapted to mine… never mind. Erm. I was just thinking that wings are – well, a bit more powerful than an arm, right? For demons, they’re kind of a supernatural power source. Are you the same?”

David nodded. The blood on his pearly white wings looked very red. Cleo’s artistic mind couldn’t stand stains. Stains were wrong. 

“I’m just gonna try” she said, and healed him with one touch of her hand. There was a buzzing sensation and a static sound like a tiny electric shock, and the stain was gone. 

“Woah!” She stared at her fingers. “I’m good. Am I good? I don’t mean good good, of course, but, ah, you know what I mean – that was fast! And look! It’s gone! Does it feel normal?”

David flexed his strong shoulders carefully. “Oh, yes. Thank you!”

“Told you wings were more powerful. I guess you’re just the same.” The way his shoulder blades moved under the smooth skin was downright enthralling and she was itching to start drawing. She moved closer to examine the places where his wings grew out of his back. “Oh look, even the joints are practically the same. That’s exactly where our wings grow too.”

David shivered. “Your breath is so hot. No offense.”

Cleo was very aware of how close her face was to the bare skin of his back, but she kept feigning casualness. “Oh really? Not sure if that was racist. Speciest… whatever.” She got even closer so her breath would warm up his cool skin and ran a finger over his shoulder blade, circling the root of his left wing. “If you were racist, you’d be a really bad angel, wouldn’t you?”

This was too much. He put up with casual teasing to a point where she couldn’t help but be impressed, but when she kept nagging and blatantly tried to put him on the spot, he got sassy. Mind you, he stayed polite. It was a very angelic kind of sassiness. 

“I’d say there’s no such thing as a bad angel. That would be like a good demon. Are you supposed to care for a prisoner from the other side like this, healing wounds, getting… close?” He didn’t look at her, and he didn’t move. It was a game, with two sides who didn’t take it equally seriously.

“Oh, this is an original precedent” Cleo breathed against his neck. “As far as anyone here can remember, we’ve never had a visitor like you, pretty boy. So who can say what I’m supposed to do or leave undone? Actually, the things I might do…”

“You’re not a good demon, then?”

“Shut up!” She gave his shoulder a hard slap and he reacted instinctively by pulling in his wings to protect them, raising his chin defiantly. And again, the words were on her tongue, pushing against her teeth from the inside. I’m sorry. She was not.

She took her sketchpad and a pencil and began to chart the outlines of his shoulders and neck. “I need to get the wings down too” she mumbled. “The anatomy is very similar, but they’re still a major difference mainly because yours are white, and quite a bit bigger, I’d say.” He unfolded his wings. “Good boy.”

He let that pass without comment, as she’d expected, but surprised her by asking a question. “Yours are black, aren’t they?”

“Yup.” She sketched the joint to the left of his vertebrae. 

“Are they all black?”

“Well, technically, yeah, but black isn’t black, you know. There are different shades of black. And some lazy buggers won’t groom their wings, so of course they end up looking like an old doormat.”

He nodded and pushed a strand of light brown hair back. “Was that a smile?” Cleo asked, craning her neck to catch a glimpse of his face from her position behind his back. 

“No.”

“You smiled! The haughty angel smiled at my brilliant sense of humour!” She casually opened her own, sleek wings, which shone like shoe polish from the depth of night. “Look. This is what you call classy black.”

“Don’t you have a drawing to complete?”

“Oi, cutie pie, I’m the artist here.”

“My point. Which is why I asked.”

“Don’t you worry, angel, I have full control of my agenda.” A moment of silence. “I can hear you thinking. You’re about to say I’m a good demon. Stop it.”

“Yes.”

She poked him with the tip of her pencil. “Good little angel.”

“I’m going to do your portrait today, so you can stay dressed. Just sit down here, facing me. Come on.” Cleo motioned for the angel to come closer and he sat down on the opposite chair, very upright. 

“Okay, model boy” she said, her tongue poking out between her teeth in concentration. Bright yellow eyes fixated upon his face. “You know what, talk to me while I draw. I command you to entertain me.” She gave him a lopsided grin and measured the distance between his chin and his eyebrows with a pencil, jotting down reference points.

“You usually talk enough for both of us” David replied pleasantly. He looked more at ease than ever, clearly content with this change of routine. 

“Answer me some questions, then. How does it feel for you to be here?”

“Wrong. It all feels wrong, everything, all the time. Every tiny part of me protests against my being here. Even the air tastes false.” He paused. Cleo looked straight into his big blue eyes, trying to capture the elegant curve of his lash line. “Have you ever been to Earth?” the angel asked.

“Couple of times” Cleo mumbled, sketching the shadow on his neck. “Why?”

“Did you get that feeling that you were out of place? Not too bad, just a little odd. Like you shouldn’t be there, among the people. Like you weren’t quite… worthy.”

“Sssssh, don’t move. Um…. Yes. Actually, no one has ever described it to me and I’ve never talked about it to anyone, but… you’re right.” She leaned forward, trying to memorize the sweep of his prominent cheekbones. “That was exactly how it felt.” She fell silent for a moment. “I still loved it, though. Every single time.”

“Really?”

“Yes. But don’t tell anyone.”

He gave her that little smile. “Whom should I tell here? Don’t worry. But if you really loved it… let me tell you something. It gets better. The longer you stay down there, well, I should say up there now – the longer you stay, the more normal you feel. The sensation of not belonging disappears.”

The demon looked at his lips. “Really?”

“Yes. I stayed for two months once. After five weeks you never want to go back.” He fell silent. “But don’t tell anyone.”

Cleo moved another inch, closer to his calm face, studying his cupid’s bow and the brown stubble around his mouth. Her pencil scratched over paper, hesitated, moved on. “The longest I’ve been there was five days. Never really stopped feeling out of place, but I really want to go again.” She reached out her hand and ran a finger over his lower lip. “Portraits are always the hardest task. You change one tiny detail and you either screw it all up or you go, oh shit, suddenly it really looks like him! Now what did I do right?”

David was sitting very still as she touched his mouth. Her finger wandered to his nose, running down the bridge. “Turn your head to the side” she commanded. “I ought to do your profile next. That’s a perfect nose, angel. Hell! You have such a nice nose!”

“I have another question” he said.

“Yeeeeessss?” 

“How does it feel for you to be here?”

“What kind of question is that? That’s… that’s silly. I’m fine here. Where else should I be?”

David didn’t reply, but his question would keep coming back to her over the next days, and nights. 

When the portrait was finished, Cleo thought she knew every tiny detail of the angel’s face. She found him more beautiful than ever. Who could say if it was because of his foreign nature or if he’d be equally mesmerizing as a demon?

“Here, look, I brought us something!” Cleo snatched her bag from a nearby chair and produced a tin which contained a number of small cakes. She offered him one. A look of joyful surprise had lit up the angel’s face at her generous gesture. Clearly a picnic in hell was the last thing he’d expected. He gave her one of his smiles. “Thank you, that’s very kind” he said, taking the cake from her.

“Ugh, do you want to insult me?” Cleo exclaimed. “I’m a demon, I don’t do ‘kind’. Kind is a bad word – a good word – ah, you catch my drift. Let’s see how an angel likes demon cookery, huh?” 

David was eyeing the cake apprehensively, but his curiosity was obvious. “Is it really hot? Does it burst into flames in your mouth? What should I prepare for?”

“Just try it” Cleo laughed. He complied, and shuddered. “An acquired taste.” He wiped a tear from his eye. Then, after a thoughtful pause: “It’s funny.”

“What?”

“You.”

“What?”

“You believe you’re such a great example of a fierce, vicious demon, but you must know that you’re…”

The doors were kicked open with a bang. Two guards came marching in, grabbed the angel and pushed him into the corridor. “Come on, back to your cell, you holy bastard” the first one growled. Cleo had jumped to her feet. “David!” He turned his head to try and reply to her, but the guardsdemons were hauling him along with all the sensitivity of two steamrollers. “David, what did you mean?” Cleo called after them. She didn’t get her answer.

That night was a very long one.

“When I said I could hurt you…”   
“I didn’t mean it.”  
“I never would.”

She practised the sentences in her head, but they kept sounding honest, and right, which was wrong.

She could tell him he was beautiful, she could tease him, she could touch him for artistic purposes. Maybe she could even tell him she’d like to take him to bed. But she couldn’t be more honest than that, and most of all, she couldn’t be nice.


	5. Chapter 5

Another day. Somewhere the sun came up, but you couldn’t see it in hell. Cleo had to report back to the headmaster in the morning, who showed himself very satisfied with her work so far, pronouncing her a shining example for the other students and an accomplished artist in spite of her tender age of 97. She nodded and slipped out of his office as soon as she could, running all the way to Art Hall II. Where David sat on a chair, already topless, gazing at the windows. He turned his head to greet her. 

“Hey, darling” she said, throwing her bag down on a desk and rummaging around for charcoal. 

“You called me David yesterday” said the angel. 

“Oh, did I? But don’t you like my nicknames for you, sweetie? Model boy?” She grinned devilishly, blew him a kiss and smirked at his slightly startled expression. Today’s session was gonna be wicked. And when a demon used the word ‘wicked’, they meant business.

She pouted. “Never mind if you do or not, it’s me who makes the rules anyway. So, work! We have a lot of work to do. Details! Details over details!” Cleo grinned. “You can take your trousers off as well. Don’t look so unhappy! Or I might get it into my head that we can really do without the loincloth too.” 

The angel didn’t protest, but he stubbornly held her gaze as he slid his trousers down his legs and stepped out of them. Cleo took her time to admire his almost-naked body, standing before him with her arms crossed, chewing on a pencil. David tucked his hair behind his ears and looked at her with that calm expression. His patience was remarkable, but she was determined to test it thoroughly today. 

“Let’s start with your feet” she purred. 

“I don’t have six toes, if that is what you’re looking for” David retorted. “How many does your kind have?”

“Five, although some of us have hooves when they feel like it. They’re a pretty unsophisticated lot though.” She rolled her eyes and added, “Which is really saying something.”

David, who had obediently put up his right leg on the next table, raised an eyebrow. But Cleo was already busy examining his foot, running a hand down a well-muscled calf. He flinched when she touched the tender skin on the inside of his knee. “You’re barely hairy” she remarked. 

“That’s not an angel thing, though” he said. “Lest you jump to conclusions. Just me.” 

Cleo relished the feeling of his cool skin warming up under her touch. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” She ran a finger along the veins on top of his foot, tracing every toe, before she got   
to work.

“I’m done, I think. Hands.”

He placed his right hand on top of hers. 

“They’re beautiful.” She was going to add something raunchy, but found that she couldn’t look into his eyes, so she just rubbed her thumb over his palm and carefully touched his long fingers one by one. The small pile of rough sketches and finished drawings was growing higher as the hours went by.

“Angel?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve thought of something. Are you allowed to tell a lie? Ever? I bet you’re not, are you?”

She thought she saw something flicker in his eyes. “As a rule, no.”

“Ah, as a rule?” Cleo was standing behind him, the gap between their bodies hardly two inches wide, as she was busy crafting a detailed reproduction of the angel’s muscular back. Her self-confidence had returned, or so she told herself. “Are there exceptions to that rule?”

“Well, it depends on the circumstances. Desperate times…”

“Thought so.” Cleo snickered. A portentous sound in the big, empty room. The angel’s body stiffened very slightly. “So if I were to ask you questions… like…” She moved closer, invading his personal space quite blatantly. As far as demons were concerned, the notion of personal space was a farce anyway. They were in favour of privacy only when they were at the receiving end. It worked very well – for them.

The angel’s breathing was getting a bit shallower. It was only a tiny change, but Cleo was good at noticing things. And the scent of his skin was strangely intoxicating. You never smelled anything like that in hell; it was cleaner, and purer; sweeter. Heady. Also unmistakably, intoxicatingly masculine. She smiled like a cobra and put her palm on his lower back.

“Are you still drawing?” David asked. 

“I’m thinking of a good question to ask you. One you can’t lie about. Uh, here’s a good one! When I do this – “, and suddenly her other hand was on his abdomen – low on his abdomen, very close to the loincloth. She leaned in, her chin resting on his shoulder, and whispered into his ear, “… does it feel good?”

The angel was standing very still. Cleo could feel the gentle throbbing of his pulse point. She brushed her lips over his neck. “Hey, pretty boy?” Her hand on his stomach began to move in slow circles. “Don’t lie to me” she whispered into his skin. Fingers stroking his hip. 

“Please don’t…”

“Does it feel good?”

“Yes” he choked out. She grinned into the side of his neck.

“I think I can draw your skin much better now” she said. “Now that I know what it feels like. Well. These parts of you.” Abruptly, she stepped back, breaking the contact. She rifled through her sheets of paper, sorted through her assortment of charcoal and pencils. When she looked up, David was staring at her with big eyes, his lips slightly parted. Cleo couldn’t read the expression on his face, but there was a good helping of puzzlement there. And he was flushed so beautifully. His cheeks, his neck, his shoulders.

“Hmm, what’s next…” she pretended to muse, absent-mindedly running a hand through her shock of flaming hair. “Oh, yeah, right.” She gave him a grin that some people may have liked to describe as cheeky, but which was undeniably downright naughty. No way around it. “I’m afraid for the next part, I’ll have to kneel.”

David’s whole body went tense and he touched his tongue to the roof of his mouth. “No. Don’t do that.”

Cleo pursed her lips. “But how else am I supposed to get my picture of your inner thigh right?”

“My inner what?”

“Oh, this part here, you know.” She knelt down in front of the incredulous angel and touched the inside of his right leg, above his knee. “Right here.”

“Oh Lord” said David in a slightly shaky voice, still sounding thunderstruck but also like a man - angel – who knew that resistance was futile. The muscles in his legs were quivering. 

Cleo brushed her thumb over the tender skin. “Oh, interesting. And what happens if I go here…” Her fingers crawled up towards his hip and slipped beneath the edge of the loincloth thing that covered him. 

“What happens is, I’m asking you to stop” said David, sounding almost desperate now. Cleo stopped caressing the inside of his upper thigh and looked up. His eyes told her what she already knew: She had crossed an invisible line. She swallowed hard. David breathed out. “When you went to Earth…” he asked, “was your task debauching a human man, or something along those lines?”

“No, I’ve never done that” the demon girl whispered. She was still crouching before him, but now she got to her feet and leaned her forehead against his chest. David carefully put her arms around her. “I was only sent up to make some trouble, cause some minor inconveniences. Nothing as… personal as that. I only changed some people’s passwords around, but gosh, I loved it… I loved the humans and all their creations…”

She snuggled up to him. “Do angels ever do that; the debauching stuff, I mean?”

He chuckled lightly. “Not really our area.”

“What is it like?” she asked into his bare chest. “In Heaven?”

“Don’t you remember?” His voice was very soft. She shook her head.

“Oh, it’s peaceful” he said. “Very bright and tidy, with everybody friendly and polite, though sometimes they’re just pretending. Kind. You have to be kind. Kindness is so important… And it’s very quiet there, very serene… You know what, I suppose it’s fitting that my favourite thing on Earth might be the music they create…”

Cleo wanted him to go on talking forever. The words, uttered in a low and soothing cadence, vibrated softly in his chest where her cheek was pressed against soft skin. “I want to see it” she whispered. 

The angel rested his chin on top of her head and sighed quietly. She felt it as a shiver against her face. “No, Cleo”, he responded, and there was an unknown sensation flaring up deep inside her at hearing him say her name. “You don’t want Heaven. You want to go to Earth.”

She hugged him very tight.

That night felt even longer. She thought of David in a dingy cell somewhere. Watching the guards drag him off again had made her feel worse than she’d ever felt, and she hated that new emotion. And she thought about Earth. And Heaven and Hell. And how she wished there was someone she could ask for advice. Because trouble was, she really wanted to kiss an angel and she was bloody afraid.

When she was rudely awakened by her alarm clock in the morning, her first thought was of the angel. She had to get him out of that prison cell. He was her model, they worked together, she was their artist. She bloody well had some rights.


	6. Chapter 6

The door to the hall opened with a tortured creaking sound and Cleo slipped inside. She knew David would want her to call him by his name instead of childishly, cowardly resorting to the silly pet names again. Maybe ‘want’ was too strong a word for his undemanding personality – but she knew it would make him happy.

“David?” she called, and he was there. “David” she said again, and smiled. 

“Hello, Cleo” he said, returning the smile.

“Hello” she replied. “Hey… angel, you were right, you know.”

“About what?”

“Oh, several things.” Suddenly, she found it hard to speak, but the warm look on the angel’s gorgeous face made her soldier on. “When you asked that question, you were right. And when you said that I wanted to go to Earth. You were right about that too. Gosh, yes. I want to live. Like the humans do. And, David…”

“Hmm?” His blue eyes were so gentle. Cleo realised that she trusted him, which was another shocking new experience. 

“What were you going to say? About me being funny? A funny demon? That I really was… what?”

“You act like a textbook demon” said David. “As though you’re… bad. But you’re not bad. You’re not bad at all.”

His words sank into her mind like big, shiny, inescapable rocks. “But – “, she blurted out. “But I AM a demon!”

“I know. Still.”

Cleo closed the distance between them, grabbed the collar of his torn shirt and pulled him down to her. Then she kissed him. 

She had touched his lips, and marvelled at how soft they felt, wondering how to convey that softness on paper. Eventually she had drawn his mouth, but it had not prepared her for kissing him.

When they let go, Cleo stared at his face. “David, I’m scared” she said, trembling. “I’m so scared of what they’d do.” 

He opened his arms and she let herself go limp in his strong embrace. “No, you’re strong, and brave, and clever” he whispered into her hair. “We’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”

They did not get one single drawing done that day. They shared a chair, the demon girl on the angel’s lap, curled up against his torso, and they talked. Now that the masks were off for good, they found that they could talk for ever and a day. 

“I want to go to Earth with you” said Cleo when the abominable church bells had long since struck five. “We’ll run off, together, and go to Earth.”

David smiled his radiant smile. She was getting to see a lot more of this now, and she loved it so much. Every time he did it, she had to kiss him again. He told her he was suffering from the same compulsion when it came to her and her new, honest smile. How well we go together, she replied.

“Yes” he replied now, simply, and that was that.

Cleo ran her fingers through his soft hair. “David…” Her hand trailed down his chest.

“Yes, Cleo” he said softly into her red mane. 

“I want to…”

“I know. Me too…” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“I was going to say it, but we only have those crude expressions here! You know the ones. Uhm, or don’t you? Well, I just don’t want to say, I want to… with you… and then use a vulgar word.”

“I want to sleep with you” he whispered into her ear. “Do you want us to make love? Is it that?”

She squirmed in his lap. “Yes, yes, yes” she whispered back, smiling sheepishly up at him. “Soon. I’ll think of something. My angel.”

“My little demon.”

Watching him being forced to leave was harder than ever. Cleo resolved to get him out of the cell and have him live in her own room with her that same night. And then they would work out a plan to get away. Together. 

She loved the sound of that word, and tried it again and again. Demons rarely had friends – it was against their nature. They went in for acquaintances, allies, and of course enemies. 

Cleo headed to the headmaster’s office straight away. “The thing is, Sir” she began, “technically, I’m in charge of the prisoner every day, right?”

“That is correct” said the headmaster, swallowing a whole biscuit at once. 

Encouraged, Cleo went on, “He’s really quite intriguing. Very obedient, never acts up. Doesn’t need to be disciplined. You see, Sir, I’d rather like to… keep him.” She let her purple tongue dance over her lips and leaned forward. “As a pet. So to say. In my own apartment. Drawing over the day as usual, and… you know. I’d be in charge, it wouldn’t be a significant change.”

The headmaster considered this for a moment. “Don’t see why not” he said at last. “Go to the jailer in the basement, floor -21, he’ll hand you the keys to the cell if you give him this note.” He printed a complicated symbol on a slip of paper. It flamed for a second, then cooled down to a sooty black. “You’re doing a really great job so far, ginger, otherwise I wouldn’t allow this” he added, shaking a finger at her and winking quite obscenely. “Surely you know that, ahem, intimate relationships between hereditary enemies would be –“  
“Oh, Sir, I was suggesting nothing of the kind!” Cleo said, and fled before the baffled headmaster could dig deeper.


	7. Chapter 7

She went down several million flights of stairs (demons had a tendency to be dramatic) at what she felt must surely be a record pace. It was on floor -16 that she heard it. Raucous voices, the ominous racket of kicks and bangs and worst of all, his voice. Screaming in pain; then only groaning.

Cleo went ballistic. She jumped down the last few steps and stormed down the corridor the noise was coming from. “WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!” she bellowed. The hubbub died down just as she skidded to a halt, the guards turning towards her, visibly taken aback. “Hey, ginger – “, one of them began. There was a soft groan behind his feet. Someone lay there. Someone lay there on the floor.

“David” Cleo whispered, then, much louder, “DAVID!” She fell to her knees, reaching for him. He looked at her face, smiled with bloodied lips, and passed out. “David, angel boy, my angel…” she whispered, cradling his head in her lap. Someone cleared his throat behind her. Cleo looked up at the guardsdemons. “WHAT?” she snapped, and all three of them stumbled back. 

“No, don’t even say anything” she continued, her yellow eyes flaming. She had gone savage, and the effect was pretty impressive. “This is the most important prisoner we’ve had the honour to keep locked up in bloody centuries, possibly millennia, and I’m the artist who’s tasked with producing scientific drawings of his anatomy. That means NO ONE BEATS HIM HALF DEAD! HAVE YOU GOT THAT? CAN I GET A DOCILE LITTLE NOD?” She could. “Right” she said in a dangerously low voice, sparks spraying from her eyes. “I’m taking him along to patch him up. He’s MY responsibility, capito?”

The demons nodded hurriedly.

Cleo bent over the injured angel, stroking his long hair, caressing his bruised, quiet face. “I’m here” she whispered low enough so nobody could hear the offensively gentle words. “I’m taking you with me now. Don’t worry, David.”

She willed all her strength to flow into her arms and legs and picked him up. A final threatening glare and she walked off, the limp form of the tall angel on her arms.

The three guards stood in silence until she was out of sight, equally flabbergasted and embarrassed. Eventually, one of them turned his head and asked, “What does capito mean?”

Cleo kicked the door to her apartment open. With a glance, she turned on the lights and walked over to her bed. “David, wake up, I’m here” she mumbled while lowering him down on the soft mattress as gently as possible. She sat down next to him and cradled his head in her lap again, leaning over him and whispering, “angel, my sweet pretty angel…”

He emitted a soft groan, his eyelids fluttering. Cleo sobbed with relief. “David!” She bent lower to kiss his forehead, his cheek, then his lips. Very, very carefully. “David, I love you” she whispered against his soft mouth. 

The angel moaned, then his eyes opened and he stared up at her. Slowly, a smile spread across his face. “Cleo” he said, then, “ow… I’m hurting…” She caressed his chest. “I love you too” he whispered in a hoarse voice.

“I love you” she repeated through the tears, “oh, I can’t remember if I’ve ever said that, but I really do, believe me…”

David smiled. “I do.” He winced and Cleo began to frantically feel around his body, trying to locate every injury. “Where does it hurt most? What shall I heal first? Oh, what have they done to you, I’m GOING TO KILL THE WHOLE DAMNED LOT – “

“Sshhh, shhh, love” David interrupted her in his soft, strained voice. Cleo took deep breaths and gently pushed a lock of hair from his sweaty forehead. “Alright.” She smiled. “I’m gonna be selfish and heal your lips first, because I really need to kiss you now.”

“Not selfish…” he muttered.

“Whatever…” She ran a finger along the curve of his lips, once, twice, then pressed her mouth to his hungrily. “Good?” she mumbled. 

“Better…” His hand cupped her cheek, and she laced her fingers through his. They didn’t break the kiss while she stroked his sore knuckles until they had healed too. 

“Was there a reason why they beat you up?” Cleo kissed his tender fingertips and looked into his eyes. “They were being nasty, and I… started to answer back. It was wrong, but I…”

“Really?” She gave him a disbelieving look, caressing a small bruise on his left cheekbone until it faded. “It takes a lot to wind you up. I mean, a lot. I should know, I’ve tried to crack you.” The mischievous sparkle lit up her eyes again and she winked at the angel, who huffed.

“Well, this time they started insulting you. And I snapped. I shouldn’t have, but I fought back.”

“But why would you fight when it was about me… oh.” She blushed under his gaze. “What, wait, insulting me? They didn’t know me!”

“Didn’t stop them” David said darkly. “They’d heard about a girl drawing me, and they were absolutely insolent…”

“I should have battered them for hurting you” Cleo hissed. Who knew her face could go red?

David reached for her hand. “No, I’m glad you didn’t.” He smiled proudly at her. “You only used words, didn’t you? You were wonderful.”

Cleo had heard her fair share of compliments so far, and she’d liked most of them. She was delightfully wicked, she was a fine student, she had a real talent for drawing, she had hair like hellfire, her snarky comebacks had teachers and rivals alike taking notes. This beat every single one of them, though. And getting into trouble for someone else? Angelic concepts were weird. So wonderfully weird she had to kiss him again. Until he moaned in pain because she touched his ribs, where it turned out he’d suffered a rather nasty wound. Cleo helped him raise his torso from the bed and impatiently tore the shreds of his shirt off, leaving him looking just a little dumbfounded. “I’m gonna miracle you new clothes, but this is a joke. Oh dear, look at you…”

There were six more injuries she had to deal with, but finally the angel stretched his long, lithe body with a contented sigh, flexing fingers and toes and bending his knees experimentally. “Oh, this is marvellous, thank you so much.” Then he yawned like a big and very exhausted cat. Cleo felt the urge to say “Aaaaaaw” and was bewildered by herself.

“I’m tired, too” she said truthfully. It had been a very long day, and she had always been one of the demons who copied the average human behaviour. Sleep at night, wake up in the morning, not vice versa. Other demons regarded the rhythm of day and night as purely optional, but Cleo though the humans had got it right. 

“Good job my bed is so big, don’t you think?” She went back to caressing his bare chest which was heaving gently. His skin looked slightly darker in the glow of her lamps. But just as silky. David’s eyelids fluttered open. “Hm hmm.. it’s a nice bed…”

“Not that I’d mind sleeping on top of you, mind” Cleo said. “Oh, two minds in one very short sentence, I can do better than that… never mind. Ugh, I swear I’m not doing this on purpose…”

David got up and sat on the edge of the bed. Cleo scooted closer and hugged him from behind, resting her face against his broad back as he started to pull his dirty trousers off. “I never asked…” she began in a hushed voice. David turned his head to her. “Hmm?” 

Cleo nuzzled his hair and pressed a kiss to his bare shoulder just below his neck. A purple tongue darted out to taste him, and he growled very softly. She could feel the muscles of his back twitch and move. “The headmaster talked about all kinds of things they were doing with you… to you, and I never asked, but now I’m asking. Oh, you taste sweet… What did they do? What was it like?”

“Oh.” The angel folded his trousers in his lap. “Well, there were lots of them, and they did… different things. Tests. Made me do miracles, but it’s so much harder down here. Hurt me sometimes… Asked me questions…” He yawned again. “So many questions. Sorry. Where can I put these?” He squirmed slightly when she licked around his neck and held up his shredded clothes. Cleo took them, threw them into the air and made them combust. They burned up into nothing and David looked at her. “I said I was gonna miracle you new clothes for when we get out of here tomorrow” she defended herself. A slightly lopsided grin spread across his tired face. “Thank you. All forgiven. Shall we lie down? I really am very tired, and I think so are you, darling.”

The demon pulled him down so he came to lie halfway on top of her. She dragged him up the large bed and draped the covers over them both. David struggled out of her grip into a more comfortable position. “Are you sleeping in your slinky clothes?” he mumbled, his blue eyes already hazy. Cleo snapped her fingers lazily. “They can’t reprimand me for that, it’s hardly a frivolous miracle when I’m that tired and also trapped in your arms… can’t possibly get up…” The lights went out. She snuggled up against his body, one arm snaking around his waist. David kissed her very gingerly. “It’s so nice to be here with you” he muttered, tongue heavy. 

“I love you, angel” Cleo whispered, drawing symbols on the cool skin under her hands which was warming up fast. His breathing was very calm now. She loved the sound, and the soft movements of his strong body pressed against hers. She’d been craving this. Between worrying about him, healing him, talking and getting extremely tired, the evening had progressed slightly differently to her expectations. 

“David” she breathed into the groove between his pectoral muscles, suddenly feeling less exhausted as excitement and anticipation came rushing back with a vengeance, “baby, do you remember what we said this afternoon?”

He remained silent. Cleo lifted her head from his chest. “Oh, you’re asleep.” 

This was a disappointment, admittedly, but she had to smile at his peaceful face, the slightly parted lips, and his dark blond head on her pillow. With a shrug, she rested her face against his heart again and hugged him more tightly. They did different things. Hurt me sometimes. “You’re my angel, and you’re not going anywhere, and no one is hurting you ever again” she mumbled, and fell asleep.


	8. Chapter 8

“David” she breathed into the groove between his pectoral muscles, suddenly feeling less exhausted as excitement and anticipation came rushing back with a vengeance, “baby, do you remember what we said this afternoon?”

He remained silent. Cleo lifted her head from his chest. “Oh, you’re asleep.” 

This was a disappointment, admittedly, but she had to smile at his peaceful face, the slightly parted lips, and his dark blond head on her pillow. With a shrug, she rested her face against his heart again and hugged him more tightly. They did different things. Hurt me sometimes. “You’re my angel, and you’re not going anywhere, and no one is hurting you ever again” she mumbled, and fell asleep. 

(In the end, the disappointment would be decidedly temporary. It lasted about five hours, and afterwards she’d think it very much worth the wait.)

A push in the ribs was not the nicest way to be woken up, but it told you a lot about Cleo’s relationship with her alarm clock that she found it to be a definite improvement. Well, by comparison. 

“Oi!” She squinted into the darkness, ready to pounce. Demons can go from being fast asleep to wide awake much faster than humans, and Cleo was quite alert now. The bed stand lamp began to glow. She became aware of a sound. Someone was breathing very raggedly; panting, gasping. It was not the sound of someone sleeping like, no way around the pun, an angel.

“David?”

She received another shove in response. This time, his elbow caught her below the ribs, which hurt, thank you very much. With a curse, she grabbed his arm. The angel was thrashing about in his sleep, panicked sounds escaping his throat, all while his eyes were squeezed shut. Cleo had heard about nightmares, and wondered. Demons didn’t dream.

“David” she whispered sternly, pulling his shivering body very close to hers and holding him tight, “love, wake up.” Comforting was new, too. She would have to get used to a staggering amount of strange new things, wouldn’t she? Well, always be up for a challenge. 

Apparently, she wasn’t very good at it yet. She tried again. “Angel boy, my darling, you’re safe. Wake up. I’m here!” He whimpered very quietly, but at last his eyes opened. They looked huge in the dim light. Cleo was proud, smiled and brushed his long hair from his forehead. “Cleo?” he asked. “You’re here…” He smiled happily.

“Yes” she whispered, and bent down to kiss him on the lips. He responded eagerly. Following an impulse, she draped her leg over his and ran a finger along his neck. “Are you alright now?”

“I’m with you” the angel replied as if that explained everything, which apparently it did for him, and that realization made the warmth she always felt in the pit of her stomach when she was with him grow hotter by the second.

“Baby, you went to sleep so fast, you missed the question I asked you.”

“Oh, how rude. What was it?”

“I was asking…” Her hand trailed down past his collarbones, disappearing under the duvet. “…if you remembered what we’d said in the afternoon.” She brushed over his bare chest until her fingers found a small nipple, and pinched it firmly. David flinched in surprise, his hips rising off the mattress ever so slightly. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t hear you earlier…” He raised a hand to run it through her tousled hair, resting the other on her waist. “But now I can confidently say that yes, I do remember.”  
Everything was heating up now, including the air in the room. Cleo’s head dipped down to kiss him, from his sternum to his throat. Her hot mouth pressed against the delicate skin just below his ear which was still pleasantly cool. “I want to sleep with you.”

“Me too” the angel breathed.

(Somewhere, in an invisible hourglass, the final grain of sand rolled towards the glass cone, dropped, and landed on a pile of accumulated seconds. Like this.)

Cleo ground her hips into his and they both gasped. “I want you” she said fervently, “but I’ve been wondering… it’s forbidden, of course, but is it even possible? Can we… would it work? How does it work?”

“I’m not sure either” he said, “but I suppose I’m built like demon men, don’t you? Nothing else about my body is different, is it? We’re the same, essentially… both like humans.”

“Except for the wings.”

“Except for the wings” he agreed. “I wasn’t planning on using mine at this particular moment, though – were you?”

Cleo giggled into his neck. “No.” He chuckled and squeezed her very tight in his strong arms. She couldn’t stop. “Guess I’ll have to check and find out if you’re like a demon man down there. I’ve been dying to find out. Metaphorically speaking, but you can take my word for it.” She put her hand on his stomach. “Oh, should I do a corresponding drawing too? It would be my… pleasure.”

David blushed a little, but smiled. Cleo crawled on top of him, where she felt something against her lower belly. “Well, you’re definitely hard. That’s normal. Great!”

The angel gasped, his eyes widening. She raised her eyebrows. “What?”

“You.. just say that… like it’s… like it’s normal, and not…”

“Oh, is it a bad thing to say?”  
“No… no, it’s good.”  
“I think it’s very good, too.” Cleo smiled, pushing herself up on her arms and looking at the flustered, blissful man underneath her. “When I do this… does it feel good?”   
“Uh… yes… it does….”

Her fingers had trailed down over his flat stomach, passing his curved hipbones, and slipping off the piece of cloth that covered him. “Hell, you’re so beautiful.” And he felt beautiful, too, smooth and cool and hard in her hand as she ‘checked’ diligently.

“You’re gorgeous. Like no one else.” The angel’s mesmerizing voice had gone husky. “May I?” 

For all his politeness, Cleo didn’t even get the time to finish responding “You may do whatever you want, pretty boy” before she found herself flipped on her back and he was kissing her almost reverently while nimbly taking her few remaining clothes of.

Imagining going to bed with an angel in great detail had led her to one major conclusion: that he would certainly not behave like a demon man. There was a list. She expected far less feral hissing, struggling for dominance, throwing each other down on the mattress to make the pitiable bed frame squeal, cursing, growling, yelling, biting and finding as many ways as possible to add rude words to the talk which was not strictly speaking dirty but rather hopelessly polluted in more or less creative ways.

So far she’d been right on all counts, but she had also missed a magnificent abundance of details.

David treated her as though he had to seduce her first, entangling his long limbs with hers, sliding up and down her body never ceasing his caresses and kisses, all intensified by a never-ending stream of softly whispered words of praise and adoration while allowing her to press her body against his, almost spasmodically and so hard it had to hurt sometimes, contrasting the angel’s graceful, controlled movements; he let her pull him down by digging her fingers into his biceps, lick and suck and bite his neck and his shoulders, rake her nails down his muscular back and swear and cry out in ecstasy, and he took it all willingly and went on driving her half-mad. 

When she managed to get some breathless words out, they were “David, are we still in hell, or is it possible to die again?”

“You can do such amazing miracles, Cleo” he said in that throaty voice, smiling with his impossible blue eyes, “you tell me.”

The girl laughed, yanked his head down and they kissed. At the same time, he aligned his slim hips and sank into her at last. 

“Oh, OH, I think the answer is yes” she whimpered. 

“And I think… I really love a demon” said David, panting quietly, still kissing her open mouth. His whole body had heated up, but he still felt cool inside her. “Is that a miracle, love?” He began to move gently.

“Yes, yes, yes.” She nearly crushed his ribs between her arms, writhing under the weight of his tall frame. “Go on, go on.”

At some point, she cried out, pressing her face into his shoulder, and gasped, “Can we please never, ever stop?”

At yet another moment, he slid his large hand under her back and pulled her up so they were sitting on the bed, the demon on the angel’s lap. He didn’t say anything, just cupped her cheek and smiled and hugged her so tight she gasped for breath while they kept on moving, and laughed into his hair.

And some moments before it was over, he whispered “Miracle”, and groaned and went very tense and then it was over. 

Cleo mumbled something. “Mmmm hmmm mm…”

“What is it, darling?” David muttered back. He had collapsed on top of her and now his dark blond head was tucked under her chin and he was breathing softly. 

“Mmmmm… love you.” She kissed the side of his neck, licking over salty skin. “When I do this… does it feel good?”

“Yes… uh… and I love you too.”  
“Don’t wanna get up…”  
“We can stay here another couple of hours. I’m sure. You can sleep, Cleo.”  
“If you promise not to run away.”  
“Promise.”  
“Don’t go flying away either. Not without me. Promise?”

His heart was beating against her own chest and she could feel his smile. “Promise. I’ll be here.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Cleo.”   
“Cleo.”  
“Cleo, wake up!”

“But I don’t wanna” she groaned. “Cause that means we’ll have to get out of bed, right? Wanna stay here with you… I’m gonna keep you. Forever.” She shifted a little under the weight of his body, running her foot from his hip down his long legs.

David nudged her. “I very much hope you’ll keep me, but I believe it’s morning. We’ll either have to go to, well, work, or make our great escape now.” He rolled off of her, smiled and kissed her cheek. Cleo groaned again. Louder. “I’m sure you know exactly how to leave hell unnoticed” said David. She grabbed his face and pulled him down for a proper kiss. “You’ve gone a bit cold again” she remarked. “You were all warm earlier.”

“Making love will do that to my kind” he said. “I think you helped too. Your skin is always so nice and warm.”

Cleo sighed dreamily, reaching out to stroke his well-muscled arm. “It was absolutely brilliant. You were.”

“Thank you.” The angel propped himself up on his elbow and took her hand in his. “Back at you. You were marvellous. Cleo, I hate to be pushy, but do you have a plan? To get out of here? I think I’ve worked out part two, but I’d rather relied on you to come up with part one. I don’t know much about this place.” His sweet apologetic smile made her want to grab him and have her way with him again. Twice. She shook her head and decided to be reasonable for now.

“Right. You’re right. Sorry.” She grimaced. “Uh, it feels so weird to say things like this! Will I get used to it, do you think?”

“I’m sure you will. You could teach me some rude words in return” David suggested.

“Oh, you bet, darling! I’m gonna corrupt you properly, just you wait. Anyway. I know where the portal to Earth is. We’re just gonna walk there like we own the place.”

“But won’t they sense that I’m not a demon?” David asked. “I can tell if someone is an angel or a demon, and I got the impression that you guys had the same powers?”

“Yeeeaaah… but I have a note from the headmaster with his signature on it.” Cleo grinned triumphantly. “He gave me permission to fetch you from that cell. Look…” She picked up her trousers from the floor where they had miraculously folded themselves and pulled a slip of paper out of the back pocket. The elaborate black symbol still exuded pure, unapologetic authority. “Nobody will stop us when we show them this. Bureaucracy is big here. Actually, I think we invented it…”

David smiled his broad smile. “Terrific. So we go to Earth, and then we’ll also have to stop by heaven for a short visit. I’ll find us a portal, we can sense them fairly easily.”

“Why do we need to go to heaven?” Cleo asked with wide eyes. She was not entirely sure how she felt about this. It was unbelievably exciting, of course, but suddenly she started wondering how the angels would welcome her. A rather important point she hadn’t considered before.

“For camouflage. If we can get maybe three powerful angels together, they’ll be able to produce a miracle which will make it impossible for your side to track us down.” His big blue eyes seemed to x-ray her. “Or do you think that won’t be necessary? Don’t we need precautions?”

Cleo thought of all the demons she knew. “Oh, we definitely do.”

“Yes, I was rather afraid we did. But don’t worry. I have friends, they’ll understand. Oh – that reminds me. Isn’t there anyone you’d like to see before we leave?” His voice was very gentle now; he seemed cautious. “You know, to… say goodbye?”

“I’m a demon. So, no.”

David looked at her.

“You’re doing The Thing again, sweetie” she said. He frowned. “What is The Thing?”

“What you’ve been doing since we were introduced. Looking at me like you can stare holes into my skull and read my most private thoughts and force me to tell you stuff about me. With those damn blue eyes of yours. Which are utterly gorgeous, by the way, in case I haven’t mentioned it before.”

David kissed her. Cleo wondered briefly if it was simply his new method of shutting her up, in which case she had to hand it to him because it sure was effective; but she only had time for that one thought before she got lost in the pure sensations again. 

Then an unbelievable noise erupted somewhere beside the bed. David recoiled. “What is THIS? Can you turn it off? Can you please turn it off, Cleo?”

“Oh damn, that’s the alarm clock” Cleo grumbled. “We should really get a move on, or they’ll start wondering. You really don’t want demons to start wondering.” She pointed a finger at the source of the racket, prompting it to explode in a very clean and orderly fashion. “Won’t be needing that anymore.”

“Don’t you ever wonder about anything, then?” David inquired with an innocent grin. “My little demon?”

She grinned mischievously. “Oh, yeah. For example, once I wondered if a demon could kiss an angel. And then I wondered if a demon could go to bed with an angel.”

“Intriguing. Did you reach a conclusion?”

“My conclusion was that someone should just go ahead and do it. The results were bloody extraordinary. Ooooh, they really were.”

She fell silent, gazing into the void. David waited. “Cleo?”

She raised a hand to her mouth and stared at him with wide eyes. “Oh fucking hell, I slept with you!” Then she collapsed in a fit of giggles. The angel ran a hand through his hair, obviously unsure how to respond. He plumped for, “Um, yes, I was there.”

Cleo had buried her face in the duvet. “David, angel, my love?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Shut up and cuddle me some more. Just five more minutes.”

Twenty-six minutes later, they were almost ready to leave. Cleo had packed a bag, but she wasn’t going to take too much with her. She’d never been big on sentiment. Now only one thing remained to be done.

“I’m still not wearing any clothes, you know” David said. He was sitting naked on the edge of the bed, watching her patiently. 

“Ts, so discerning. Yeah, alright” she groaned when he cocked his head. Smirking, she put both hands to her temples, concentrating hard.

“Do I get a say in this?” the angel asked.

“No. Be quiet, model boy.”

“Oh, a leather jacket. Why did you think that would suit me? Hmm, I quite like it, actually!” He hopped off the bed. It was indeed a leather jacket (black), over a t-shirt (black and tight), a pair of jeans (dark blue and tight) and ankle boots (black leather). He looked down his body. “Thank you very much for the clothes. Oh, these trousers are fairly tight. I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but did you have to make them so tight?”

Cleo shrugged with a satisfied grin. “You have a great backside.” She saw him blush a tiny little bit at this. “You’re blushing!” she exclaimed, bounding towards the angel and throwing her arms around him. “Is that exciting?” he asked fondly, stroking her back. “Oh, it’s just so sweet. It was my challenge, you know? Never mind, don’t listen to me rambling, I just can’t get enough of it! Shall we go?”

“Yes, please.”

Cleo took his hand and pulled him with her. She didn’t look back before she closed the door with a bang, and they set off together.


	10. Chapter 10

“Is the portal far from here?” David asked. They were walking briskly side by side, down the corridors and up an enormous spiral staircase. The angel’s long brown hair turned some heads, but the fact that he was clothed like an average citizen of Below and the demon marching beside him were enough to placate the sparks of suspicion before anyone detected his foreign aura.

“No, it’s in the building. We’ve got to get to the top.”

The floors of the university were getting busy. More and more demons poured into the corridors, pushing past each other without bothering to get out of anyone’s way. A girl’s yellow eyes lingered on David, intrigued at first. Then she frowned. Cleo frowned back.

“Which way?” muttered the angel, who had noticed as well. 

“Straight ahead, and up the next flight of stairs… whoever built this stupid college really liked stairs…” Cleo glanced over her shoulder in spite of herself, her eyes narrowed. She hadn’t missed the leery gaze of one of her former art classmates as he’d come drifting past in the noisy crowd. Not much later, most demons had vanished into halls and classrooms. The ones that were left now got more opportunities to note the odd couple, to furrow their brows and to take second or third looks. Cleo was starting to feel much more tense than she liked to feel. David retained his calm demeanour, but when a guy with spiky white hair slowed down and squinted in their direction, he suddenly turned left into a deserted hallway, pulling Cleo with him. 

“This is isn’t working, you’re going to have to take me prisoner.” His voice was very low, his eyes intent.

“I’m not sure that’s less conspicuous” she hissed quietly. “It’s not that far now –“

“But you said they’d heard about me, and I don’t think anyone is going to stop us for a chat even though news have got around. They’re realizing I’m not a demon, especially now when we can’t count on the safety of the crowd anymore. Please, Cleo.”

She nodded, visibly strung up. “Alright, but let’s get going again.”

David turned and folded his hands on his back. “Handcuff me” he said with an urging look over his shoulder.

“Woah, now you’re a kinky one?”

“Cleo!”

“Alright!” Click. “Come on.”

They slipped back into the main hallway, Cleo firmly holding David’s secured wrists, and quickened their pace.

“Still kinky” the demon muttered.

They made it to the top floor and Cleo indicated a door about a hundred yards away which was surprisingly not black but a dull silver. By all accounts, nobody had polished it in thousands of years.

“Is everything in this place grimy?” David mumbled. 

“I’m not.” Cleo eyed the two demons guarding the silver gate. They had set up a little camping table and were playing cards.

“No, you aren’t, but all the stuff here… was it ever not dirty to begin with?”

She pushed him in the ribs. “Ssssh, angel. Shut up.”

“I can’t help it, it makes my skin crawl” he murmured. 

Cleo put her hand on his forearm and gave him her broadest smile. “I know, and we’re so close to getting out of here, and it’s gonna stop. Come on, love.”

David smiled back, then tensed slightly. “They’re looking at us.”

Cleo flexed her shoulders and took a deep breath. “I say we catch them out, just don’t let them get a single word in and slip through the door as quickly as possible. And I still have that form from the headmaster.” She grabbed his handcuffed wrists. He nodded.

The guards stopped arguing over whether or not one of them had cheated more shamelessly than the other and looked up as the pair came striding in their direction. 

“Hey” Cleo announced confidently, pretending she had to drag the decidedly blank-faced angel along with her. “That’s a cool tablecloth, love the pattern, are you playing poker? Don’t mind if we pop in there quickly, do you? That’s great, stay watchful, see ya.”

The first guard seemed blindsided by her rapid-fire speech pattern, but the second one was quicker on the uptake. “Waaaaiiiiit a moment.”

Cleo rolled her eyes at him. “What? I’m kind of on a schedule, and this guy is so fucking pesky, you can’t imagine what I’m having to put up with. At least once we’re in there, he won’t be able to make off.”

The demon, who was short and stocky but had arm muscles like coconuts and an obnoxious little beard, looked sceptical. “Yeah, sure. He could try to jump through the portal and be off to Earth, couldn’t he?”

“Do you believe we can use demonic means of miracle trans-worldly transportation, just like that?” David interjected in his old “talking to hereditary enemies” tone of voice before Cleo could hiss at the guy. “My body would go up in fire. I would rather pass on that experience, if you don’t mind.”

The other demon grunted. “Who are you anyway, ginger? Are you authorized?”

“Oh, I’m so authorized.” Cleo produced the little slip of paper and shoved it under his nose with a triumphant smirk. “That good enough for you? I’ve been put in charge of this prisoner, and we need to do some tests. Hey, angel boy, those handcuffs are not gonna yield, so stop trying.” She yanked on the chain while he pretended to struggle silently. 

“That’s the headmaster’s signature” said number one. “Looks like we’ll have to let them through.”

“Hm.” Number two was obviously thinking hard. Cleo and David exchanged looks. He flashed her the tiniest smile and brushed his index finger over her palm. She put on her exasperated face again and held out her hand. The second guard shoved the piece of paper into it. “Unlock the door” he snarled at his colleague, who dug a bunch of keys from his pocket and rammed the first one into a lock next to the door. There were six, all rusty and mean-looking. With a groaning clattering sound, a hidden mechanism clunked into life.

Cleo could sense David’s tall body right beside her, all muscles tense. He still appeared utterly detached and disdainful, but she felt the quick pulse on the inside of his wrist.

The second lock was grinding its metal teeth. Then the third one.

The demon girl bopped up and down on the balls of her feet, throwing the guards disparaging looks. “Can’t you hurry up a bit, lazy bones?”

“Oi, shut it, carrot head” said number one and wrestled the fourth key into its lock. His colleague was frowning. “I’m still not sure this isn’t fishy somehow” he grumbled. 

David frowned, too. He seemed to be concentrating very hard.

Lock number five.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve heard something – some story -“ The suspicious guard slapped his own forehead with both fists. “Aaaargh!”

“What?” asked the other one, the last key hoovering in mid-air. 

“Oh, come on!” said Cleo, “do you want me to call the headmaster, heh?”

The guard grimaced in her direction and shoved the key into the sixth lock. The mechanism began to creak like the front door of a haunted castle. The gate slid open inch by inch.

“Uh, I’ve got it!” yelled the demon and stopped hitting his own head. “If demons can leave Heaven, then why shouldn’t their lot be able to use our portal too? Stop!”

There was a clinking sound as a pair of handcuffs hit the floor. Cleo felt David’s big hands over her eyes. Then, suddenly, everything was blinding white. She could see it through the gaps between his fingers, but the guards reacted just like she had the first time the angel had unfurled his wings before her: they stumbled back, dazzled and helpless.

The crack in the door was just about wide enough now. David retracted his wings, pushed Cleo through the door and slipped inside after her. She rubbed her eyes frantically and threw herself against the gate. “Close, you stupid thing!” she yelled. 

On the other side, the guards were also yelling. “OW! I can’t see!”

“What the fuck was that? Did something explode? Was it my head?” 

The door wouldn’t budge. “David!” Cleo screamed, her eyes searching him, searching for help. “David, no!”

The angel had collapsed on the ground as soon as he’d entered the room and was struggling to get on all fours, groaning in pain. “It… hurts… ow… it’s gonna tear me in two…”

“HEY! You!” The suspicious guard sounded as furious as a kid who’d been pipped to the post at blind man’s bluff. Cleo saw his hand reaching through the gap between the wall and the gate. And right next to it, she saw a shiny red button. She punched it with all her might. The door slammed shut and someone howled. “Squashed fingers, never nice” Cleo panted. “Oh, David!”

He had managed to get back on his feet, but his breathing was ragged and he looked pale. “Let’s go… go…”

Cleo was by his side with two leaps. She took his face in her hands. “But what’s wrong with you?”

The banging on the door nearly drowned out her voice. David reached for her hand. “Don’t worry – what do we do? Do we – “, he paused and stared, “jump down?”

The circular opening in the middle of the windowless hall seemed to stare back at him.

“Yes” said Cleo. Shreds of grey smoke came drifting out of the hole and curled around her ankles.

“I think it’s – aaaah - pulling me – it knows that I don’t belong here” David groaned. Outside, the banging grew louder. Cleo gave the angel a lop-sided grin. “Jump with me”, she said, and pulled him with her. They jumped.


	11. Chapter 11

“Oh damn” Cleo moaned. The clear blue sky above her was spinning around. A blade of grass tickled her cheek. Her head ached. “Oh DAMN” she said again, louder. 

David, who was lying flat on his back next to her, turned his head. “Hello” he said, and smiled. Then, suddenly, he was above her, and kissing her passionately. 

“Wow, woah, oh heck!” She laughed, grabbed his shoulders and sucked his full lower lip between her teeth with relish before pulling back for air. “Now my head is definitely spinning. And so is the sky. Can it stop doing that?”

David flopped down on his back again, a happy smile on his face. “We’re on Earth. Isn’t it lovely?”

“My head aches like… something really achy.” Cleo groaned. “And we’re lying on… grass? It’s – hang on, how are you? Are you ok again? You were writhing on the ground!”

“I’m fine!” The angel got up and offered her his hand. “I think it was just a lot of confusion… I didn’t belong in hell, and I don’t really belong here either, and suddenly different forces were pulling at my substance, and performing that miracle with the handcuffs drained some of my strength, but I’m perfectly alright now. How are you feeling?”

Cleo wrapped her arm around his slim waist and looked up at the sky, which had thankfully stopped moving. “Weird. Funny.” She kissed the dimples in his cheeks that appeared every time he smiled. “Happy!”

“I’m happy that you’re happy” he said, and kissed her back. Cleo tucked her head underneath his jaw and breathed in his sweet, clean fragrance, which had never changed even slightly since she’d known him. He smelled and felt the same way on Earth as he had in hell, as a prisoner, stranger, model, friend, confidant, lover or fellow runaway; in his dirty ragged clothes or naked in her bed or holding her in his arms in a park on planet Earth. Smelling his skin, hearing his voice and feeling his body against hers meant safety and everything that was good. She felt at ease. “Where are we, David?”

“London. Hampstead Heath. Isn’t it pretty?”

“We’re surrounded by trees and other things with leaves, angel. I can’t see that much. Did you take us here?”

“I think so. I pretended it worked just like the portals in Heaven, and it seems like I got it convinced.”

“Well, I’m glad angels can use miracle trans-worldly means of transportation from hell after all. That was a good bluff.”

“Well, I wasn’t quite sure. 90% sure, maybe. It was a 90% bluff. Thank you, though.”

“So. Now.” Cleo cleared her throat. “Heaven?”

The angel gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Yes. And then we’ll be free.”

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to give that a try!”

They found the portal to Heaven in a churchyard on the other side of Hampstead. Cleo felt the atmosphere was chilling. She didn’t feel welcome at all. It was as though the stones of the church themselves repulsed her, trying to prevent her from coming in. She huddled close to the angel and talked to distract herself. “David, I have a question. If your side can shield you from, well, us, how come they could capture you? Why didn’t you use that camouflage thing?”

“Oh, that. Because we were being arrogant and thought we didn’t need protection.” He smiled sheepishly. Cleo shook her head. 

“Well, it was only a normal little trip! We weren’t looking for trouble” he defended himself.

“I’m glad you were being arrogant, you stupid angel” said Cleo. 

As soon as no human was watching, they stepped through a weather-beaten marble arch in the back of the churchyard and a blinding white light enveloped them, sweeping them upwards. The stone angels that guarded the arch raised their heads and looked after them. Cleo’s screams echoed from a distance nobody could have measured correctly, even if they’d felt compelled to try.

“Yes, she’s a demon” said David. “Would you please listen to us?”

“Why is she here?” said the dignified archangel Michael with the air of someone who has lost the thread earlier in the conversation and is determined to make his way back hand over hand along it until he understands everything. “With you?”

“We’re asking for help.”  
“You are both asking for help.”  
“Yes, Michael. Please.”

The mighty archangel furrowed his brow and muttered something to David that Cleo couldn’t hear. The younger angel sighed very quietly, nodded and gently touched her shoulder. “Cleo, dear, would you mind waiting outside, maybe in the garden? Won’t be a moment.”

Everything was so bright. Cleo remembered David’s description; it’s peaceful. Very bright and tidy, with everybody friendly and polite, though sometimes they’re just pretending. Kind. You have to be kind. Kindness is so important… And it’s very quiet there, very serene…

She lay down on the neatly cut grass and imagined she and David were already back in the London park.

There was no one else around to disturb her; only the two angels’ voices came drifting through the front door of the (white, and very clean) building. She heard David say “…she’s become too good. She fell almost one hundred years ago, but I suppose you could say she has… risen. Is this actually unheard of? Has it never occurred before?”

The archangel’s answer was unintelligible. Finally, David’s voice caught her ear again; he sounded as calm and composed as he did most of the time, but there was a layer of reckless passion to his tone now as he said, “I love her, and she loves me. And that is all I have to say.”

There was silence. Cleo closed her eyes and thought me too – God, we’re a fucking mess but I trust you, angel boy and then she heard footsteps. Of course the door hadn’t creaked even the tiniest bit. What a wacky place.

She remained stretched out on the lawn with her eyes closed as the angels approached. “Love?” David bent over her. “I’m not going to ask if you’re alright” he said, “only because you have evidently acquired a taste for lying on the ground. I’ll simply assume my demon is fine?”

Cleo lifted one eyelid. “Correct” she replied. David grinned and pulled her to her feet. 

Cleo blew a strand of hair out of her face and looked at Michael. It took a lot of willpower to bite back any snarky or even slightly cheeky remark. The old angel looked so different from any being she had ever laid eyes on, but something about him just demanded a minimum of politeness. “So. You two have been having a nice little chat about – us?”

“May I take your hands?” came the reply.

“What?”

She felt David’s hand on her shoulder. “It’s fine. You can go ahead. He’s only going to assure himself.”

The demon hesitated under the old angel’s infinitely patient gaze. “Alright.” She let him take her outstretched hands in his and shuddered. “Uh…”

David wrapped his arms around her in a possessive manner while the archangel Michael did his thing. Cleo felt as though he was poking around the attic of her consciousness, but his touch had induced such a feeling of serenity that she didn’t mind. It was a bit like floating an inch above the ground after drinking three glasses of hot mulled wine.

“Very well” said Michael, letting go of her hands with a kind little smile. “Thank you, miss. I am convinced your intentions are honourable and sincere and that you are trustworthy.” Cleo was oddly reminded of one of her former professors who had been equally fond of big words like “honourable” and “sincere”. (Also, it had to be said, words like “purgatory”, “Armageddon” or “chastisement”.) She leaned into David’s body, feeling a little shaky and dizzy but perfectly content.

“David” the archangel continued, “you know a rather great amount of power is needed to perform the kind of miracle you were hoping for?”

“Yes, Michael. I thought we’d go and look for – “

“Oh, that will not be necessary. Allow me to do the honours myself, dear.”

David’s eyes went big and Cleo could feel his arms tighten around her in excitement. “Oh, I – hadn’t expected that – that would be wonderful!”

“Well, I have always liked you, young one” said the old angel, still smiling. “I liked it when you sang.”

“What?” Cleo turned around in David’s embrace to give him an indignant look. “You sing?”

“Yes, sometimes, but don’t mind that now, love. Archangel, we’re honoured – “

“When were you gonna tell me that you can sing?”

“Cleo…”

“Alright, I’m quiet, but don’t think I’m not gonna bring it up again soon.” She slapped his hard chest, but gave him a quick kiss on the cheek when he looked guilty.

“Anytime the two of you are ready” sounded the patient voice of the archangel. 

“So sorry” said David, and Cleo echoed him quickly, thinking “So wacky”.

Michael spread his arms, looking very holy. “I hope you will be very happy” he said. And there was light.


	12. Chapter 12

When they woke up, they found themselves lying on a patch of grass once more. Cleo thought she was getting used to it by now. You had to hand it to the grass, it wasn’t bad to lie on.

Stars and supernovas were dancing behind her eyes and in the depths of her skull. When she got her mind to focus, she saw a lot of green. Green was god. More trees. Things with leaves. The park again?

“Daviiiiiid…”

Silence. Apart from birds twittering, various plant-y things rustling in the breeze, distant human voices, the hum of a huge city being alive just behind the park. Not very silent at all, actually. Cleo liked it.

She turned her head and saw David stretched out next to her, looking like he was sleeping peacefully; a bag with some of his belongings from Heaven beside him. She pinched his nose and he jumped. “OW!” He got up into a sitting position and looked around, his face sleepy. “Cleo? Are we back in London?”

“I think so. Looks like a park, anyway. Are we safe now, David?”

There came the radiant smile. “We’re free.”

The birds in the trees, feeling that it was a fitting moment, puffed up and chirped like an orchestra. 

They left Hampstead Heath and walked through the streets of the British capital. The people took them for ordinary tourists wandering around hand in hand, craning their necks to get a good look at everything, pointing and laughing at each other in amazement. A pretty young couple. Maybe goths, judging by the clothes. But nobody thought them weird. Well, it was London – crazy, dirty, legendary, marvellous, beautiful London.

David, who had spent considerably more time on Earth than the demon, suggested they find a hotel somewhere in the centre and start looking for a proper place to live the following day. He was obviously enjoying being in full command of his miracle powers again, producing a handful of pound coins out of thin air and asking if he could buy her anything at the shops. 

“You can conjure up money?” Cleo asked incredulously.

“Yes, sure. It’s a basic miracle. Do you mean you can’t?”

“Well, no! We always had to steal it!”

They checked into a hotel in Camden. The spacious room was neither as gloomy and dingy as it would have been in Hell, nor was it as shiny and hyper-clean as any possible Heaven counterpart. David found it a little untidy whereas Cleo thought it disconcertingly neat, but they both loved the big windows with the sunlight slanting down to paint bright rectangles on the wooden floor.

“That girl at reception was flirting with you” Cleo remarked, throwing her bag on the armchair in the corner. David put his in the wardrobe. “She was only smiling and being welcoming and nice, wasn’t she?”

“No, she was looking at you in a flirty ‘uh he’s hot’ kind of way” Cleo sulked. “I’m not having that. Nobody gets to stare or flirt with you except me, and that’s that. You belong to me.”

“That seems a little possessive” said the angel. The demon put her hands on her hips and gave him a very eloquent stare. After some seconds, the little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and she grinned. 

“Well, you belong to me. Come on” said David, reaching for her hand, “the sun won’t set for a while yet, let’s go outside again, shall we?”

“To walk? And see the city? And see the people?”

“Yes, everything. And if you start missing home, we can always go for a ride on the London Underground. I thought the similarities were astounding.”

“Home? Oh, uh, that’s sweet, but I don’t think it’ll be necessary. Honestly, it was high time I got out of there.”

“It’s a good thing you waited long enough for me to turn up and tag along then. Shall we see the Tower Bridge?”

They walked back in the early evening, having avoided venturing down into a tube station, but having tried out the red busses once. Cleo liked the noise and fumes of the traffic. The angel would cough or pretend to cough ever so often and insisted on taking breaks in parks at regular intervals, to which Cleo agreed on the condition that they choose reasonably crowded parks. She couldn’t get enough of watching the people running around being so fascinatingly human and alive.

Marvelling at the amber-coloured light of dusk, Cleo asked, “David, you’ve been sent to Earth on missions several times, right?”

“Yes, and I got to visit London three times.” The angel glanced at a newspaper kiosk. “I’ve been wondering what Earth year it is… ah, 1968.”

Cleo’s eyes gleamed. “I love this city. It’s funny and exciting and loud and full of human people! OI, watch it, dumbass!” A passer-by who had almost bumped into her flinched at the menacing voice, saw flashing yellow eyes and decided he’d better run. Cleo giggled while David called “She’s sorry!” after the man. “Are we going to stay here? You like it too, don’t you?”

“I do, but I think overall I probably prefer the countryside. There are many beautiful places on this planet. Did you have to frighten that poor man?”

“He jostled against me! When demons do that, which is practically all the time, you hiss or snap or shout or elbow them… or just everything at once. How are angels always so bloody tame?”

“We’re not tame, we’re kind and polite” David protested.

“And when you went to Earth before to be kind and polite to humankind, what was the best thing you ever did, do you think?”

The angel linked arms with her and thought. “Hmm… I think it was some years back, speaking in Earth terms… I arranged for two boys to meet and become friends.”

“What? Why was that kind or holy or important or whatever?”

“Oh, they were very special boys, you see.” He smiled at the memory. “One of them had a band, and it was obvious that he was extraordinarily talented even then, but I thought if he could meet the other one they could start playing together and bringing out the best in each other. And then they found two other boys who joined them and together, I believe they’ve now become the best thing to happen to music in this century. Well, they’ve chosen a rather funny name for their band, but I suppose you can’t have everything.”

“Music…” Cleo pondered. They passed by a record store. “Oh, look!” David pointed at the shop window. “There, that’s them! That must be the latest album. Oh, we’ll have to listen to it.”

“Why is it all white when the others have colourful pictures on the covers - like that one over there, "The Piper at the something"?” Cleo wondered. David shrugged. “Artists.”


	13. Chapter 13

They arrived at the hotel and climbed up the stairs to their room. Cleo had just closed the door behind them when David said, “Oh, you know what we’ve forgotten? Dinner.”

“What?” Cleo kicked her shoes off, gave the new hole in her left sock a reproachful glare and quickly miracled it away. “Oh angel boy, it’s been great, but I don’t wanna go out again right now.” She flopped down on the double bed, looking demonically lewd. “I want to lie on this bed with you. Trust me, it’s really comfy, never mind the disgusting shade of pastel blue of these sheets.” The covers turned a dark shade of ruby. 

“The last time I had something to eat was when you brought those hellfire cakes!” whined David. Even though angels and demons could last longer without food than humans, most of them got cranky after three days at the latest. “And this is London, they make amazing food from all over the world here, I promise.”

“Didn’t you get anything after – “ Cleo stopped as unwelcome memories forged ahead to the forefront of her mind. “Let’s not go there, that’s all over.” Focus on the uninjured, healthy-looking handsome angel dressed in untorn stylish black clothes who was currently giving her puppy eyes. “Aaaaw baby, of course you – HEY, stop that!” She laughed in spite of herself. “That’s a highly unfair weapon” she complained. David tucked his long hair behind his ears and put the keys back in his pocket. “I can nip down and get us something on my own while you relax here” he offered.

“You’re such a gentleman on top of being freakishly cute, you know that? It’s frankly obscene. Alright, I’ll be waiting.” She blew him a kiss and stretched out on the bed with a sigh. “Can you get me something very exotic and spicy, sweetheart?”

“Sure, love. See you in twenty minutes!” He smiled and closed the door without a sound. She heard his light footsteps on the stairs; he always moved so gracefully for a tall broad-shouldered man. Angels…

“Why would you close a door like it’s glass when you could bang it shut like a normal person?” Cleo muttered at the pillow, shaking her head. Apparently the pillow didn’t know the answer either, or it was just being secretive. Cleo thought about how happy she was for the next two and a half minutes, and also how lucky. Then she slept. 

Then she woke up. The hotel room looked decidedly more shadowy and she was briefly reminded of her old apartment. On the nightstand to her left sat a docile-looking alarm clock which claimed that it was currently 19:47. David had mentioned twenty minutes; not almost one full hour. 

Cleo sat up. “David?” She jumped off the bed. “Angel!”

He wasn’t in the bedroom. Or in the bathroom. She doubted that he’d be standing in the wardrobe, but she checked anyway. No results. No angel. 

“Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no” she muttered. 

(Sure, love. See you in twenty minutes.)

Cleo pulled at her hair until it looked like an expressionist painting. She stormed into the bathroom again in case David had just materialized in the shower cubicle, but it was still empty.

(Why do we need to go to heaven?  
For camouflage. If we can get maybe three powerful angels together, they’ll be able to produce a miracle which will make it impossible for your side to track us down. Or do you think that won’t be necessary? Don’t we need precautions?)

“NO NO NO NO!” she screamed. The pictures. Demons. Guards in dirty black with vicious eyes. Seizing him. Dragging him off. To lock him up, to beat him, to hurt him, to take him away from her…

(Oh, we definitely do.  
Yes, I was rather afraid we did. But don’t worry.)

It hurt so much she crouched down on the floor and pressed her hands to her temples. But the pain wasn’t just in her head, it was everywhere. The wounds on his body… the way he’d flinched when she wanted to touch his wings… lying on the floor with blood on his lips. “Stop it” she whimpered. Then she remembered that she was not like that, and snarled. “Stop it now!”

And she’d told him he was safe.

They were not in hell anymore, not prisoners, and he could look after himself; but at the end of the day, this didn’t change that much for her. She jumped to her feet, forcing the desperate ache that had possessed her entire being to withdraw just a little. Only enough to give her space to think. 

The archangel Michael himself had performed the miracle. A powerful and ancient entity whom David seemed to trust completely. But what if it still hadn’t worked… He had said three angels were needed, normally. What if it hadn’t been enough for both of them… and if he was outnumbered again…

(It was only a normal little trip! We weren’t looking for trouble.)

He was never looking for trouble; he’d just wanted to buy them something nice for dinner. 

(Alright, I’ll be waiting.)

Oh no, she was not. She was going to find him. The door slammed shut behind her and she rushed down the stairs past a couple of befuddled hotel guests, out into the cool English evening.

The streets of Camden were still busy. Cleo sprinted towards the market, where she suspected David might have gone to buy food. The trouble with Camden market was this: it was a maze. Even though most stalls had closed by now, it still presented a spectacular opportunity to a) get lost and b) certainly not find what or whom you were looking for.

Cleo tried anyway. 

She searched the whole area, shouting the angel’s name at the top of her voice, looking into every corner and every shop she could find, once climbing up a lamp post to get a better view. A group of people thought it was street art and applauded when she jumped back down. Cleo glared at them before she recollected herself and asked the humans if they’d seen the angel. No, they didn’t think they had, but was she planning on climbing anything else? 

Cleo fought down an urge to scream and dashed off again. She felt she wouldn’t be able to control the burning pain in her head, her heart and her entire body much longer. Losing David was the one thought she’d never allowed to enter her mind. A parallel universe where she lost him didn’t exist. 

She kept searching. The sky assumed a dark shade of blue and the city’s lights came to life. Cleo kept walking, looking and calling his name. Then she saw the figures hardly two hundred yards away.

They were demons, and there were two of them, and they hadn’t seen her. 

Cleo turned on her heel and ran back to the hotel.


	14. Chapter 14

When she got there, she paused for breath, wondering why she had come back and whether she shouldn’t keep searching the city. But she was exhausted and extremely frightened and there was a chance that David had returned while she’d been out. A chance.

She leaped up the stairs. Her breath hurt in her throat. Her mind had gone almost entirely blank by now, safe for one endlessly repeating thought: _I can’t lose David._

Before she could even scold herself for not taking a second key, the door to their room opened and she screamed out.

“Cleo!”

His voice – that was his voice.

Tumbling, she nearly knocked them both to the ground, but the angel seized her and pulled her into his arms. “Cleo – “, he started again, sounding weak and immensely relieved, but she grabbed his face and crashed her lips against his with a scream or a sob or both, and he was forced to stop talking.

“ _David_ …” she mumbled against his mouth, hands clawing at the back of his t-shirt and running through his hair. Then she pulled back. “ _Where have you been?!”_

David gasped for air. _“Where have you been?!”_

_“What do you think?! I went looking for you when you hadn’t come back after a whole hour!”_

“I’ve been – “

_“I thought the miracle had gone wrong and they’d captured you again! I thought I’d lost you!”_

His arms tightened around her and he whispered “Sshhhh, Cleo, it’s fine, you’re here, I’m here, please, you’ve got to calm down….” He rocked her back and forth while she sobbed.

“I thought I’d lost you….” she repeated.

“I’m so sorry” he muttered. “So did I when I came here and found the room empty – “

“ _YES, for fuck’s sake, because –_ “

“Sshhh, Cleo, don’t worry, I’m not accusing you. But I saw two people – demons – and I got so afraid because I thought they’d come looking for us.”

“Oh, I – I saw them too!”

“I watched them to find out if they were looking for us, I followed them around a bit until I was sure they weren’t – we’re safe, Cleo, don’t worry – they must simply be on a mission, nothing to do with us - but then it took me a while to get back to the hotel and then you were gone. I was about to run back out on the street and start searching – oh, don’t cry, love…”

“We’re safe, we’re really safe, you’re sure? Because I – David, I thought I’d lose my mind, it – it hurt, it hurt so bad – I didn’t know - “

“I love you so much” whispered the angel, his hands on both sides of her face, blue eyes looking straight into hers. Cleo took his hand and kissed his palm; her cheeks were streaked with tears. “I’ve never been like that” she said in an uncharacteristically small voice. “What’s happened to me?”

David just kissed her. It was the most desperate and passionate kiss they’d shared, and within a fraction of a moment it had turned into something more akin to a force of nature; a wildfire, possibly; a storm; an enormous wave. An overwhelming hunger.

She felt his strong hands on the small of her back and pressed her body against his while he attacked her neck, her jaw, then went back to capture her lips with his, breathless, panting. Her hands slipped under the black t-shirt she had picked out for him in the morning, a lifetime ago, and running her hands up his sides and over his lower back, she sensed that familiar tingling spark as his cool skin grew warmer under her touch. She bit his neck, eliciting a throaty groan; nipped at his collarbone. His hands were under her shirt, when suddenly he grabbed her and lifted her up and carried her a few steps and lowered her down on the strange bed with the deep red covers. Cleo had her arms around his neck and frantically pulled him down with her so he nearly stumbled; he was trying to kick off his shoes. She couldn’t bear to let go of him for half a second, not now, and it was all going too slow. When he’d made love to her in Hell, he’d shown her that it could be gentle and loving and leisurely, drawing everything out with such relish to the point where you’d go almost insane with craving, to the point _just_ before you’d snap, and she’d loved it. But this was desperate and frantic and fuelled by angst and the aftermath of fear as much as passion and desire. She knew it couldn’t be any different that night, and she wasn’t going to fight it; and neither was the gentle angel.

“I was so afraid they’d… taken you prisoner and… were hurting you again” she managed to say between hungry kisses. “I tried to imagine being without you and it scared me more than anything.”

“I thought you were gone… captured… being punished” David panted. “Oh God, no, I don’t – let’s not…”

“No, let’s not talk about it”, Cleo kissed down his chest, pulling the t-shirt aside; “I want you so bad.”

She pulled her shirt over her head and fumbled with her belt; the angel pushed his tight trousers down his legs and threw his t-shirt behind them, bent over her, covering her slim body with his brawny figure. His light hair that made him look so different from demon men fell around his face like curtains, brushing over Cleo’s chest. It felt so soft. Both were panting, struggling to get into a good position while their limbs were tangled; mouth on mouth, her hands on his strong shoulders and back, his fingers sliding up her inner thighs, nudging her legs apart. He opened his half-closed eyes to look at her, a silent question or possibly a plea written all over his beautiful face. She pressed their foreheads together, nodding, and let him enter her. New tears formed in her eyes, hot and stinging; she tried to blink them away. David thrust his hips down and she felt him deep inside her, the muscles in his legs quivering and his abs palpably tense as a breathy groan fell from his lips. He’d squeezed his eyes shut, but now he opened them and noticed her tears. He stopped. “Oh, Cleo, am I hurting you?”

“No, darling, love, no, it’s not you…” She wiped her eyes furiously. “I don’t even know why I’m crying anymore…” She laughed, ran her fingers up the side of his neck and tangled them in his long hair. David leaned his forehead against hers. “You’re not hurting me” she assured him, “don’t go easy on me, David, please, I need you –“ She crashed their lips together again and felt him twitch inside her; her legs were clamped around his hips as he began to move them in a fast rhythm, thrusting deeply and relentlessly, and she matched her movements to his until they were in perfect sync.

It was a wildfire, a storm, a giant wave banking up to challenge the sky, an all-consuming hunger, and as such it couldn’t last long. David lowered his head and gasped, “I’m sorry, I’m not going to last… Cleo…” She kissed his bicep and felt it tremble; her lips brushed over his stubbly cheek and the little heart-shaped dip between his upper lip and his perfectly straight nose.

It was incredibly difficult to mould what was going through her mind into words… it was all hazy, so many colours, and lights, and feelings, mostly feelings, possibly of the galaxy tipping and spinning around them, at any rate of an intensity that threatened to strangle her. “It’s fine, you… you silly angel… I love you… I love you - go on…”

He gave her that smile, muttered “love you too” into her ear, pushed into her very slowly – groaned, stretching like a panther – stayed there – then he thrust several times, very quickly, and their sounds of relief mingled in the night air as he slumped down against her and she kissed his cheek, a final tear falling on his tired face and rolling down his throat.

Gradually, their breathing settled into a more relaxed rhythm. It hung in the semi-dark room, the noise of the city outside the large windows. David ran his hand up and down Cleo’s arm, his head on her shoulder; she was caressing his back.

“I think I haven’t even thanked you properly” the angel said after a while.

Cleo stroked his hair. “Hmmm?”

“Thank you for saving me, uh, several times. And for trying to save me once more this evening.” She could feel his little grin against her neck and tightened her embrace.

“I’ll feel awfully soppy if I reply something like _you’ve saved me too, in many ways_ after all the soppy things I’ve already said today” she mumbled, pretending to pull an appalled face. Her face wouldn’t do it though, and of course David noticed. “It’s cute when you get soppy” he commented.

“I’m not cute!”

“Hm hmm.”

Cleo slipped a hand between their bodies to feel for his heart. “I’m just so tired…” A thought drifted through her fuzzy mind. “You’ll have to sing something for me tomorrow, don’t think I’ve forgotten about that… your voice is so beautiful… sexy…”

“Fine… One more corny question” said David and yawned. He had settled comfortably into a position half beside, half on top of her. Cleo thought he never looked more angelic than when he was happy and tired.

“You may go ahead because you’re stunning like this.” She caressed his pectoral muscles and pressed a kiss to his sweaty throat. Apparently it was possible to become addicted to tasting someone else’s skin. She’d always suspected that love was stupid.

David looked up at her. “Are you happy?”

“Yes. Very much so. Are you? Love?”

“I’m not going to answer that, it must be so obvious” he drawled sleepily. His heart was beating soothingly, steadily against her palm. “Oh, I never got us dinner… Sleep well, little demon. I love you.”

“I’m not little, but you can go on saying that, and I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A tiny little comment or two would make me soooo happy... just saying :)


	15. Chapter 15

The sun went up early in the morning, discovered that no one had bothered to draw the curtains and shone brightly through the windows. Cleo felt the warm rays of light on her face. She took it as a welcome reminder that she was on Earth and opened her eyes eagerly. Her face was pressed into David’s torso who was still asleep, her left hand on his belly interlaced with his bigger one. Cleo went through her memories in an attempt to ascertain whether this was the best she’d ever slept, caressing his soft palm with her thumb, and thought it probably was.

The air smelled fresh and cool with a hint of the warmth the day would bring. The sounds of the awakening city were tapping softly against the windowpanes, stirring up the peaceful stillness a little rather than disturbing it.

Cleo contemplated the sleeping angel next to her and felt happy and alive.

Inspiration began to cough pointedly in the backseat of her mind, so she snapped her fingers for her sketch book and a pencil. The morning light was crisp and clear and even the shadows looked friendly at this time. Eyes narrowed, she began to draw.

For a good fifteen minutes, she worked in silence while the sun went higher; then she had to reach for the duvet that covered the angel up to his waist and pulled it off, trying not to wake him. Her fingertips brushed over sensitive skin. He shifted in his sleep, a little frown appearing on his calm face. One minute later, he woke up, shivering, and began to ask questions. The first one was, “Why is the duvet gone?” and the second “Are you drawing me naked now?!”

Cleo kept sketching, tongue between her teeth. “Had to. Yep.”

David reached for the blanket and pulled it up to his ribs. She got the reproachful edition of his puppy eyes look and grinned broadly. “I wasn’t finished!”

“I was cold” he huffed.

“And embarrassed” Cleo suggested.

“No. Just cold.”

“Sure.”

“Possibly a little uncomfortable because I was asleep. Who expects to wake up and find someone drawing them – without clothes on?”

Cleo had been considering her nearly finished drawing but jerked up her head at this. “I’m not _someone_!”

David yawned, running a hand through his tousled hair. He seemed appeased when he conceded, “No, sorry. You’re a very talented, if slightly kinky artist and I feel honoured, as I should. And cold. And somewhat embarrassed.”

“Aaaaw, everything’s fine.” She leaned in to give him a long kiss. “Your definition of kinky is different from mine, by the way… wait till I bring the handcuffs back.” He made a little remonstrative sound against her mouth and she snickered. “Well, to be honest I’m really almost done with this picture; guess I can do the remaining… _parts_ from memory.”

It was so endearing how he tried not to blush. Cleo, who was looking forward to becoming a proper Earth artist and contriving shocking, interesting things with pencils and brushes and confetti, knew without a doubt that nobody would ever be a better model for her than this sweet beautiful moron.

Later, they went out to buy a couple of newspapers, David teaching Cleo how to make a purchase in a polite way. She got it right from the start except for the angry haggling.

Until the end of the week, they perused the rent advertisements every day and got lucky within little time.

It was a flat in West London, not far from Hyde Park. The angel, who loved nature even when it contained annoying pigeons and joggers listening to music with earphones, was particularly pleased about this.

They furnished their new home. This involved several compromises – David was allowed light blue walls in the bath, Cleo kept a skull-shaped lamp and the handcuffs he scowled at in the bed stand drawer -, but overall they both were happier than either of them could ever remember being and laughed and smiled a lot at each other.

One week after they’d moved in, Cleo bought the first floral-print t-shirt of her life. Two days later, she surprised herself by apologizing to a stranger for stepping on his foot even though he’d failed to get out of her way by himself. She was also getting better at striking up friendly conversations with humans, although she was sure she’d never succeed in being patient with wailing children in supermarkets.

David increasingly managed to stay unblinking when he heard about prisons, guards or the devil, didn’t say more than two prayers a day and even stopped flinching every time someone said a bad word, but he kept sharing money, all the food he happened to have with him and on one occasion a broken umbrella with every homeless person he saw on the street.

No demonic hunters ever showed up, although David kept blaming Hell for the vacuum salesmen who would frequently show up at their door.

Cleo enrolled at an art school and began to clutter the bedroom as well as the living room with paint tubes, sketch books, pencils, crayons, charcoal, sixteen different kinds of paper, drawing pads, watercolours, oil colours, colours she mixed herself using a set of instructions from her former demon teacher which had a tendency to explode unexpectedly – the colours, not the teacher - and a gigantic canvas stand that looked like it had been fashioned from the ribcage of an extinct species.

David considered going to university as well, having tried it for a couple of weeks some decades ago and having enjoyed most of it, but his plans took an unexpected turn when he returned from a stroll one afternoon, carrying a dusty black case.

Cleo interrupted her current activity, which consisted in painting the kitchen a fiery red. (She could have done a simple miracle, but one of her new art school friends had been adamant that painting some walls and spilling paint over yourself was an important part of decorating your first flat, and also that you absolutely had to wear a newspaper hat.) “What’s that?”

The case turned out to contain an acoustic guitar.

“Alright” said the demon.

“I was in Denmark Street” explained David, “where they have all the lovely music shops, and… I’m not sure what exactly happened, but when I looked into the shop windows and saw all the different guitars, I felt like I had to go in there and take this one home with me.” He took the instrument from its case, ran his hand across the fretboard and smiled fondly at it.

Cleo, who’d spent too much time with a cagey prisoner, always loved seeing him like this. “Can you play?”

“I’ve never tried it” he said. “Heaven is rather big on harps and trumpets and classical music.” He put the guitar on his lap by seemingly fitting his whole body around it in a way that looked amazingly natural, pursed his lips and played a note. Somehow, he drew the single note out far longer than Cleo had expected; it hung in the air - if it had had a physical form, it would have shone and shimmered. The angel strummed a couple of perfect melodious chords, twisted them into a pretty tune, then looked up from the guitar. Cleo was staring at his hands. She’d dropped her paint brush.

“That…” she said, then started again. “That was _astonishing_ and frankly insane. You just made up that melody? How do you make it sound like that? It sounded – I’ve heard guitars, but this was so beautiful. Kind of… wistful? Kind of too much feeling at once, actually. I can’t process that. Excuse me for a moment. Have you actually, really, honestly never played the guitar?!”

“No” said the angel, his voice conveying that he was slightly piqued but too happy to properly indulge in it. “You know I don’t lie.” His slender fingers were stroking the guitar like he’d just found his purpose in life in the shape of six strings and some metal and wooden bits.

“Yes, yes” said Cleo lovingly. She’d have to draw him like this. “I should have known you were just amazing.”

The blue eyes lit up again and he beamed. “I’m going to go back there tomorrow and buy an electric guitar and an amplifier too!”

“Oh, are you finally gonna sing me something now, sweetie?”

David started playing again and then he sang. Cleo didn’t know the song, but when he finished a dreamy look had glazed over her face and she mused, “You realize that I’m gonna ask you to sing at least five times a day from now on, right?”

“Oh”, a slightly shy smile appeared on his features. “Thank you. Yes, I will.”

Cleo gave him her trademark grin, sauntering over to his chair and sitting down on his lap. “I love you.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “What are you going to do, then?”

David, who seemed perfectly at ease and unencumbered by everything, still hadn’t put down his new treasure. “I’m going to find a good band.”

“Not a good one. A bloody brilliant one!”

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction. I do not own David Gilmour and I hope he wouldn't be horrified if he knew I was writing about a character based on him...


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